STRESS-FREE WAYS WITH WEED CONTROL

There is one group of plants that never fail to look healthy and grow well: Weeds! But gardening expert Becky Searle has a four-step plan to keep them in check

- Becky Searle

By and large, plants that decide to grow somewhere of their own accord, the so-called 'volunteer' plants, grow with a vigour that we can only dream of in our carefully reared crops. I have a beautiful patch of sunflowers on my allotment that have sprung up from what I presume to have been something's poop. They're much happier than the ones I sowed myself. Weeds are similar to this, but because they display certain unwelcome characteristics, we call them weeds and try to rid ourselves of them.

One such unwelcome characteristic is their incredible ability to grow, flower and set seed quickly. Sometimes it can feel like they pop up overnight and go about spreading their seeds far and wide on your carefully curated vegetable beds. In summer, weeding can be a relentless job, but it's a necessary part of grow your own gardening, to avoid competition with our crops and to stop the weeds taking over.

But some people seem to float around their allotments and gardens with practically no bother from weeds at all. So, what's the secret? Well, there are several.

STEP ONE: START OFF WITH A BLANK CANVAS

This might seem obvious but it’s easier to stay on top of your weeds if you're starting off with a blank canvas. This means removing or covering weeds in a bed and using that for planting. Even if you can only manage to clear one bed of weeds at a time, you then only need to stay on top of that one while you work on the next and so on. You will need to remove large, pernicious weeds like brambles, but try using carboard as a mulch to suppress annual weeds. Wer the cardboard and put some compost on top of it in the ‘no dig’ style and you instantly have a blank canvas with very little work.