h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice entry and very helpful. My own, new garden (recently moved house) is a jungle of dandylions, distles and other nitrogen-loving plants. Quite a pest. And since we belgians are demanded by law to fight distles, it's a hard job. I'm a biologist, so I don't want to resort to chemicals. Thanks to this entry, I can try some other methods, besides de-flowering

It would be great to hear how you get on with it. My own approach to weeds is that I just remove them when I want to plant something, so this hasn't been tested on a large area - not that anyone has 'reported back' to me anyway.

I'll try to remember it, although it will be a while, probably. The idea for now is to cover the patch of garden that's infested with 'weeds' with grass that I've mown (is that correctly spelled?).
Anyway: that's to cover the whole thing up and blocking the sunlight, but still letting the water through. After winter I was planning on plowing it all in the ground. I hope that works. By using a plow-machine I hope to destroy any roots that are still in the soil.
I'm now also constantly removing flowers, for preventing seed dispersal.

There's also another piece of our garden that's infested with distles, but I'm gonna put some chickens on that one. That should get rid of the weeds quite quickly and thorougly

Once you've ploughed it, do something with it quickly. Cutting the roots of some weeds just encourages them to grow, and any seeds that have been hanging around underneath your soil will suddenly be brought nearer the surface and might germinate. What are you planning to do with it once it's all ploughed over?

Personally, I don't have weeds in the garden, just wildflowers and very wild flowers. I can't help it if they are sometimes a bit too wild for some people.

A good way to deal with troublesome weeds, especially those with taproots, is to give the ground a good soaking and then pull them out. If you really saturate the soil first, it's usually quite easy (though a bit messy) to tug out the whole weed, roots and all. It also saves a lot of wear and tear on your back. Weeding can be an arduous business. Another advantage to soaking before pulling, particularly when you want to remove weeds from a dense planting such as a typical wildflower garden, is that weeds tend to slip out of the ground with a minimum of soil attached to the roots. Every gardener knows the frustration of heaving a tricky weed out of the ground, with a big clod of earth attached, only to see some precious gem lying exposed on the soil next to it, the collateral damage of weed control.

Great Entry, Mina!

JTG

My idea is to put a home-made greenhouse over it (it's not a big piece of our garden, about 3*5 m²) and then plant some tomatoes, a pepper-plant, some herbs like basilicum and rosemary, maybe outside the greenhouse some types of lettuce.

Then I'm in luck, John. The soil back home is already realy wet, so simply pulling the distles out (with gloves) should be easy. I think I'm gonna give that a go, before covering everything up with grass.

You can cover the greenhouse floor with gravel, to stop the weeds from coming through if you're growing that sort of thing.

I wish I'd known that about weeding from soaking wet earth, I'd have put it in the entry! Thanks John!

I wish I'd known about it 20 years ago. My back would ache less now.

I'll stop complaining in that case.