Weeding It Out

Every time I go out to the garden, the one thing I usually always do is weed. I sit in the rows and pull the weeds out of the beds. By the end of the hour, I will have a huge pile of weeds which I take and put in the compost pile.

Weeds compete with the crop one is growing by taking the water, nutrients, and sunlight. A weed is a plant and just like any plant, it needs water, sun, and nutrients to grow. They can lower crop quality and produce harmful chemicals like allelopathy. They can also increase the number of insects in the area they are growing.

We only use tools and our hands at the garden to remove weeds. Instruments we use are action hoes, and trovels.

There are some ways to prevent weeds. At the garden we use hay which is our mulch, to help prevent weeds. We also allow our friends, worms, to help cultivate for us.

Some farmers use herbicides to reduce weeds. In an article written in The New York Times, it discusses how herbicides, like Roundup, have created superweeds. Farmers are having to go back to pulling weeds and other labor-induced work to get rid of the weeds. Thankfully, we do not have to worry this, because we do not use herbicides.

When we pull weeds from out of the ground, we try not to take a lot of soil from the ground. Soil is usually stuck in the roots, so to try and save it, we shake the roots and the soil usually falls.

Different plants can attract different weeds so it is important to be able to identify them.