Weeds in the garden and how to deal with them. Image has a wheelbarrow full of weeds. — Not a pretty picture! Weed overwhelm in the garden.

There’s nothing more soul-destroying than getting all excited about growing vegetables for you and your family and within a month or two your little patch of paradise is overrun by wild weeds. There is so much joy and satisfaction that comes from growing and eating your own vegetables that it is important that you don’t give up. So here are a few pieces of wise old gardener advice that I can give you to help with that problem.

1. Start with what you can manage.

First of all, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Weigh up how much time you realistically have and match that to the amount of space you are prepared to allocate. If you are working fulltime and running a household, then there may not be huge amount of time available for your project – its better in that case to start small and extend as you have the resources to do so.

Having said that, once you have planted out your beds, especially if you are following a system like I have laid out in the crop rotation poster, you don’t need a lot of time but you do need consistent regular time which, if you are organised, you can plan for. I suggest allocating one weekend a month for the big stuff like sowing your next batch of seeds and giving your garden a good going over, paying dedicated attention to care and cultivation. Then follow the little and often principle. You will be surprised about how much you get done in 10 minutes a day. Even if you set aside 15-30 minutes a couple of days a week to maintenance, hoeing, tilling, hand weeding, then you should be able to keep up with everything. Catching those weeds before they get any bigger than little seedlings will be what you are aiming for.

2. Make your vegetable garden an attractive place to be

Who doesn’t know how you can wander out to the garden in the evening with a cup of tea or a glass of wine in your hand and then pull a weed, then the next one, then the next one until you have just cleared a whole row. But you can’t do that if your garden is so far away that you need to pack a picnic to get there. Out of sight out of mind applies here. I always advocate having your garden clearly in sight, close to the kitchen in a nice sunny spot. Put a table and chairs in there, plant some edible flowers, fragrant herbs and plants to attract the butterflies and bees. Then there is nothing nicer than spending time in it.

3. Don’t do it alone.

Get the family involved. You will be doing yourself and your children a big favour if you can instill a love of gardening in them. Or if they are not showing much inclination in that area, then you will still be doing them a favour by teaching them how to work and sharing in that part of family life. If you are worried you will put them off gardening for life – I wouldn’t worry too much about that. When I was first married to a young Airforce officer and living in a married quarter on Hobsonville Airbase in Auckland, he used to tell me about how his father ‘forced’ them the weed the garden every week and they had to remove any little piece of greenery so no weeds dared show their face there again. Neither of us showed any interest in gardening until we moved into our wee house together and then we both literally became mad gardeners overnight.

Our own children had to put up being “dragged around” garden centre after garden centre and then squashed into a car full of plants, peering through a tree branch to see where we were going. The youngest, in particular, used to say that she was never going to a garden centre again when she grew up. However I can safely report that she has now ventures there often and although she lives in the city there is plenty of growing going on in the space she has available to her.

The oldest one has made a career out of growing and plant knowledge with a Degree in Medical Herbalism and then a Bachelor of Culinary Arts. Her “thing’ these days is edible flowers. She makes and sells the most beautiful flower decorated cakes under the brand Botanical Kitchen, most of which she has grown herself. Plus she creates healing and wellbeing products from plants. So don’t worry about putting them off but do be careful about not making it too much of chore. There’s lots of ways of making it fun and there is nothing wrong with training your kids up to understand what it is to be part of a family. Everyone may participate in the work, but then everyone also participates in the fun and pleasure that comes from eating your own food.

Daughter number 1 and her daughter number 1. Penelope Maguire - Botanical Kitchen.

4. Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

I am a big advocate of mulching your garden. Nature itself is pro-mulch, always clothing herself with a layer of fallen leaves, ground cover plants or autumn-fallen perennial or annual plants that have completed their annual cycle. Weeds themselves are just nature’s way of covering the earth with what is available. So if you have bare earth, you need to cover it with something of your choice or nature will cover it with something of her choice. You also are working with nature because when you use spent plant mulch, you are adding to the soil. The process of composting continues to take place, the worms love it, and you are not only reducing the amount of work you have to do, but you are feeding the soil, regulating its temperature and conserving water.

Use what you have available. Just be careful about anything that is full of seed or has been sprayed with something nasty. I used grass clippings but am very careful to not use when the grass has gone to seed. Straw, your own leaf mould, old rotted wood chips are some ideas. You can also layer it like you would compost. So you may start off in spring with some lawn clippings, then do another layer of pea straw on top of that etc. When you do use wood chips you may need to add a bit of lime or nitrogen to the soil underneath as the soil uses nitrogen when it breaks down and wood is also more acidic than some plants like. I know a garden where the gardener had used fresh wood chips and was wondering why his silverbeet was yellowing. The application of a bit of nitrogen helped but the more rotted the chips the better.

Also remember, especially if using fresh lawn clippings, to not put them right up to the plant itself. Make a little circle of space around the stalk of the plant and this will stop the plant rotting where contact takes place. For this time of the year in my cool temperate climate, the warm grass can create a little microclimate buffer of warmth for the wee seedlings as well.

5. Rest when you need a rest.

And finally, especially if you have created raised beds similar to the way I do mine, if this year you don’t think you are going to be able to manage the time at all, then cover the beds with mulch and leave them until you are ready. Sometimes over winter, I just lay down weed mat and leave it. By spring when I’m ready to plant, the ground is all clear and ready for me as well. Or you can compost the bed, chuck in a bit of fertiliser, lay down a good layer of wet newspaper or cardboard and then cover with a good layer of woods chips or other plant-based mulch and then leave until you do have time. It will still look great, you are feeding the soil, and it will reward you with strong healthy plants when you have the time. You can see from the picture I have used of the garden covered in snow, how the raised beds can look good even when empty of plants.

I hope this helps. There is so much joy in growing your own food and creating beautiful places around us that it is important for you to keep the enthusiasm up and not give up. The pleasure really will overcome the pain and anything good and worthwhile often takes a bit of work. So let me encourage you to keep going.

References in this article. Crop Rotation Poster. Click here to purchase yours online. https://professionalcountrywoman.com/useful-and-beautiful-things-to-buy/Crop Rotation Poster

Botanical Kitchen – to check out Penelope’s products or to order online click on this link. https://nzbotanicalkitchen.com/