subject: Planting And Cultivating A Garden [print this page] For many people spring time means that it's time to start a garden. Whether you garden for pleasure, the aesthetic pay off or for food you will have to consistently be weeding your garden.
The weeds do not care what kind of plants you are growing or what you are planning to do with your garden. They will incessantly grow where you do not want them to grow.
If you are not weeding your garden you run the risk of ruining all of your hard work. Weeds are not just ugly but they are deadly for your plants.
When weeds start to grow in your garden you may shortly find out that they will start to take the nutrients from the soil. The nutrients that these weeds take are the nutrients that your plants need to grow and be healthy.
If the plant is aggressive it can quickly destroy the plants that you have taken the time to put into the ground. Often times they destroy simply by starving your plant of nutrients.
Some of the unwanted plants will actually attack yours. They may begin to wrap themselves around your plants essentially suffocating them.
Other weeds will begin to grow tall and wide and they will block the sunlight from the areas that you have planted and cultivated. Without sunlight anything in that area will die.
You do not want all of your hard work to go to waste. Weeding is something that may be obnoxious and incessant but it is absolutely necessary.
By weeding consistently you will be much more able to handle the weeds. How often you weed is completely dependent on your situation.
To minimize weeding throughout the year you should take all of the precautions you can to rid your plot of weeds before you even start to plant. Doing this can take a lot of effort and time and this may be why so many people skip over the step.
In reality, the prep work that you put into your plot of land will be a large determinant of how your garden will turn out. If you skimp on the prep work you should not expect your garden to be its best.
To avoid skimping on the prep work you have to have a plan. This will make it easier for you to understand why you are doing what you are doing and also prevent you from being completely overwhelmed.
First, you have to designate an area of your property that you are wanting to garden. This area should be easily accessible so you are able to water and weed it consistently.
There should also be an ample amount of sunlight that reaches this area of your property on a consistent basis. You may have to deal with shadows but these shadows should not be leaving the area of land in the dark for the majority of the day.
After you have found a plot you should start by weeding this spot. This can be very difficult if the weeds are dense and have been growing there for a long time.
Many times gardeners will water the area that they are going to weed for a few days before they weed. Then, they will weed when the soil is still moist.
By weeding when the soil is moist you will be much more able to take the weeds out completely. There may be some weeds that you find to be especially difficult. When you run into these weeds do not be afraid to use a shovel to help you.
Whatever you do, do not just pull the top of the weeds off. This will leave their entire root system to sprout new weeds into your garden.
Try your best to get as many of the roots out as you possibly can. Some people like to dig up the plot and overturn the soil.
You can either do this manually or with a machine. This will give you the ability to sort through the soil for any roots that you may have missed.
After you have all of the weeds out you should fertilize the plot and continue to check on it for the next few days. More than likely new weeds will sprout up.
Do not get discouraged, this is completely normal. Just pull the few weeds that sprout up and after a few weeks you will notice that there are rarely weeds in that spot.
When you have reached this point you are ready to start planting and cultivating your garden.
