Image via Wikipedia

There are several steps to organic weed control in your lawn and garden. It takes patience and commitment, but you can prevail against unwanted weeds over time.

Weeds Happen

You have tilled the soil and added rich homemade compost. You have painstakingly encouraged worms, lady bugs and other good-for-your-garden guests. You have a garden you can be proud of. Then, you walk out the door and there are hundreds of weeds poking up from the mulch.

How did that happen?

Maybe your compost pile or mulch pile had a few seeds in it or maybe the wind brought over your neighbor’s dandelion collection. Whatever the reason, you now have weeds. Even though you may be tempted to use chemicals to get rid of them fast, it is better to use organic methods that may take longer. This keeps your surroundings healthier and more able to withstand weeds in the future.

Methods of organic Weed Control

Which method of weed control you use will depend on the size and type of garden you have.

Old Fashioned Weeding

One of the best methods of organic weed control is old fashioned weeding. It takes awhile, but if you can remove weeds from your garden before they begin to mature and seed then you will have fewer weeds to deal with next year and fewer the year after that.

The weeds are easily removed when they are small. Commit to spending an hour or so each day pulling these small intruders out of your organic garden.

Crowd Out Weeds

You can crowd out weeds with healthy plants. Weeds need sunlight, waster, and vitamins and minerals just like your plants. When you plant items close together, the weeds don’t have a chance to thrive. This doesn’t work with all categories of plants, but can work well with bush plants like green beans.

Mulch

Mulch provides weed control by keeping the weeds from getting light, vitamins and minerals or space. As soon as your seedlings are up, surround them with a thick layer of mulch. You may have to replace it during the season so be prepared to do that.

Many people like the plastic mulch because it does not need to be replaced as frequently. However, organic mulch breaks down and enriches the soil. Plastic mulches eventually just become fodder for overcrowded landfills.

Hoes and Other Tools

For larger weeds, using a hoe is a great thought. This is a good way to handle weeds in pathways and other large areas of the garden. Hoes as well help to break up hard soil and keep it ready to soak up as much water as probable when it rains.

Special guidance for organic lawns

Any sort of bare space will encourage weeds and clover. It is very important that you not walk on the lawn after it has been raining, if at all probable. You don’t want to cause muddy areas or kill the grass because that will encourage weeds.

As soon as you see an area that is bare, go ahead and re-seed it. This keeps the lawn growing only what you want it to.

It takes up to three years for organic weed control methods to become completely effective. frequently the organic gardener will see a constructive change the first year and then risingly less weeds as time goes by. Using all the methods together will allow you to slowly eradicate the weeds in your garden in a healthy way and build up the strength of your soil and the same time.

Portable generators for home

… see more items

This fertilizer should be applied to your garden lawn in spring and will last for months keeping your turf in good health, once again examine the manufactures directions on this kind prior to applying it to your lawn.

Less energy will be used to heal the cut surfaces, making more energy available for growth. All cut surfaces should be smooth. Any jagged or torn surfaces will invite seed-piece rot.

Seed of potatoes can be freshly cut and planted into soil.
If the seed potatoes are cut well before planting, place them to store at 50 to 55 degrees F and over 90 percent humidity. This will help the cut surfaces to heal. The healed seed pieces can then be held at low temperatures until planting.

How to plant seed potatoes

You will need 8-10 pounds of seed potatoes for every 100 feet of planted row.
Mark out rows (60cm apart for ‘earlies’ and 75cm apart for main crop varieties) by drawing a straight line with a trowel, marking both ends with a stick
Dig hole 12cm deep for each seed potato, placing the seed potato shoots uppermost and then fill in the hole.
Proceed onwards digging holes (30cm apart for earlies and 40cm apart for main crop) until all seed is planted at the appropriate spacing according to the type.
Generally, soil is hilled or mounded around the plants as they grow. Hills provide room for the tubers to develop, provide added soil drainage, and minimize tuber greening later in the year. It is best to hill around the potato plants within 4 weeks of planting.

If February is reasonably mild it would even be worth trying a few sowings of carrots (the variety Amstel, for examle).
Sow thickly but in very shallow drills with a minimum amount of soil to cover.

If germination is good, severe thinning will be needed, but the extra seeds will allow for the inevitable losses.

Even varieties which are suitable for early sowing will benefit from covering the soil with a cloche a week or so before sowing. Peas in particular will respond to cloche protection and growth will be advanced quite a few weeks. ‘Feltham First’ is the variety to go for.

Like you, the slugs will be eagerly awaiting the first appearance of those early crops so do sprinkle some slug pellets around to allow these vital early plants to reach maturity.

Shallots can be planted if the weather is good. Put them in, 6in (10cm) apart and 12in (30cm) between the tows, leaving the top half protruding from the soil.

When potato tubers arrive or are bought from the local garden centre, sprout these in a light, frost-free situation.

It is possible for an attack of green fly to appear on the tender new shoots so dust these with insecticide as soon as any of the pests appear.

TIPS FOR VEGETABLES GARDENER

You should use indoors to monitor the ambient general temperatures surrounding your seed environment. You also can use a heating mat to give your seeds a head start.

Make sure that the soil isn’t getting too hot.
For general seed germination, the soil temperature should be in the 60-75 degree range.

If your soil temperature is staying too warm, then the heat needs to be turned down or preferable off in the room where the seed flats are at. Seedlings like a night time soil temperature of 50-60 degrees so the plant can harden off gradually.

I had my heat mats plugged into my timer so at night when the lights and fan turned off, so did the heat mats. Once the seeds have germinated, turn off the heat mats permanently. They don’t need them and you want your seedlings to grow up stout and ready to go outside in the real world.

Consider the following information about soil temperature when you are going to plant vegetables.

• 60 F – tomatoes, cucumbers, snap beans
• 65 F – sweet corn, lima beans, mustard greens
• 70 F – peppers, watermelons, squash, southern peas
• 75 F – okra, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes

Tips for vegetables growing

• Organic pest control begins with healthy soil. It produces healthy plants, which are better able to withstand disease and insect damage.

• Specimen plants which need a warmer climate zone than you have do well in sheltered, south-facing walls. The wall acts as a solar collector, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it at night, creating a small zone that is warmer than the rest of the garden.

Fusarium and Verticillium fungi are widespread potatoes diseases and persist several years in soil.
To reduce populations of these fungi is necessary a long crop rotation (4 to 6 years).

Avoid using any solanaceous crop (potato, tomato, pepper, eggplant) in the rotation. In case of Verticillium wilt also avoids the use of strawberries and raspberries, which are highly susceptible.
Rotate with cereals and grasses wherever possible.
It is important to keep rotational crops weed-free. As there are many weeds hosts of Verticillium.

Whenever practical, remove and destroy infested potato plant material after harvest.
Maintain a high level of plant vigour with appropriate fertilization and irrigation, but do not over-irrigate, especially early in the season.
If soils are severely infested, production of potatoes crops may not be possible unless soil fumigation is an option.

GRO MAX LLC ACM40 ACE Manure 40 Lb.

Deeply fork the soil and incorporate plenty of organic material. Avoid using very fresh manure as this can result in the burning of young potato plants.
Potatoes belong to the Solanaceae family as well as tomatoes, capsicums, chillies and eggplants. Avoid growing potatoes in beds that have grown these crops in previous season.
The root system of all members of the Solanaceae family is subjected to attack by soil nematodes (eelworms).
Populations of destructive nematodes build up in the soil when successive crop of relates plants are grown.
Practising crop rotation an incorporating large amount of organic material is a simple and effective way of guarding against nematode damage.

To improve quality of soil you can add gypsum.
Gypsum will loosen heavy clay soils and break surface crusts, making soils more permeable for potato plant roots and water.
Seed potatoes should be planted 10-15cm deep (slightly deeper in hot climate with 25cm between plants and 75cm between each raw.

As the potatoes begin to grow it is necessary to hill up the soil around each plant to prevent the developing tubers being ruined by exposure to sun light. A thick layer of mulch can be used to the same effect.

Assembled Mantis 4-Cycle Honda-Powered Tiller

1. A garden fork or a digging fork is one of weeding removal tools. The tool has short tines that are used for loosening and turning soil.  With this weeding tool you remove weeds without cutting their roots.
2. To weed amongst other plants, the border fork is used which has thinner times with short closer-spaced tines. For removing weeds like dandelion which has taproots fulcrum weeder is very effective as it has a long thin handle and a split tip. It is also effective in removing fibrous roots of weeds like ferns and marigold.
3. The Cape Cod weeder has a scraping head, triangular in shape and is also used in weeding activities. The L-shaped blade is very effective since it is able to scrape the bottom parallel to the ground.
4. Cultivators are large machinery used to plant or remove weeds while aerating the soil soon after the crops have sprouted. Closely related to the cultivator is the harrow tool. It tool is effective in cultivating the soil surface.
   At the same time cultivators can be used to create shallow trenches for planting bulbs and seeds.
   5. The kirpi is another weeding tool with a curved blade and a wooden handle. It is effective in removing tough roots and for raking out roots deep in the ground.

There are many other tools used in weeding works and their supplies at Green Garden Tools depending on level of weed removal required.

Below is COUPON of GreenGardenTools.com for purchasing of WEDDING TOOLS .

Chitting of potatoes

Seed potatoes are small tubers grown in areas of low virus infection.
“Chitting”, or sprouting, aids early growth.

As soon as tubers are obtained
(usually February), place them upright in trays, with the most eyes or dormant sprouts uppermost, in a cool, frost-free, light place.

They will send out healthy, short, green shoots. Chitting takes about 4-6 weeks.

Planting of potatoes

Put crocks in the bottom of your container or buckets for drenage  and then half-fill them with your soil or compost.
Rub off all but two or three large shoots from each seed before planting to
ensure larger potatoes.

Plant the potatoes seed with most of the shoots pointing upwards. Cover them with 10cm of soil.

‘Earthing Up’ Plants

Ensure your plants are kept well watered but try not to wet the foliage. It is
also necessary to regularly draw soil up around the emerging stem. This
practice is called earthing up and it prevents the skins of the newly formed
tubers becoming green and poisonous on exposure to light.

Add about 10cm of soil/compost when the stems are 15cm tall and
continue to repeat this earthing up until the plants have grown to within 5cm of the top of the container.

Harvesting you potato crop

To harvest container grown potatoes (generally around flowering time)
simply tip your container upside down. Break up the soil by hand to expose the tubers.

Yardiac.com the Gardening Super Store

If soil is required to raise the pH, it is better to apply the lime before the rotation or cover crop is planned.

If need apply the lime in small amounts on a regular basis, to maintain the pH in range of 0.5 to 5.5 if common scab is a problem.

Follow recommendation from the soil test archive height yield.
Usually crop requires 125 to 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre, with 50 pounds being broadcast and disked in prior to planting and the rest being band-places with the planter.

It is very important that nitrogen not be over applied because excessive rates can depress yields, delay maturity, and decrease of quality of the tubers.

Phosphorus, potassium and magnesium are also important nutrients and should be applied based on soil test.
Crowers with lighter soil should reduce the application rate at planting and apply the balance of the fertilizer as an early side dress before plants are 8 inches tall.

Prior to planning, the fields should be plowed, disked and harrowed, leaving the surface fairly smooth, yet loose.

Be sure to check field records for previous use of residual herbicides that could harm the potato crop.