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Phil: Hey guys itÕs Phil from smilinggardener.com. ItÕs actually getting warm at here, I think
this might be the last video where I am wearing my faithful green sweater here. If you havenÕt
picked up my free online organic gardening course, you can do that right on the home
page of smilinggardener.com. Today I am talking about organic weed control.
Now for many of us organic weed control means we are down on our hands and knees for hours
at a time pulling weeds, you can tell right now but I was down on my hands and knees and
we really start to after a while to think that weeds are the enemies, especially weeds
like bindweed and some of those grassy weeds which just keep putting up shoots all over
the place. I am going to give you some tips on how to kill weeds naturally today but first
I want to talk about the benefits of weeds some of us realized you know that canÕt be
just that simple that weeds are all bad, the truth is weeds are soil healers.
A number of weeds are nitrogen fixers like this is vetch and this is something I actually
planted as a cover crop but it is helping to get more nitrogen into the soil, same with
clover is a common weed, people would call the weed in the line even though it wasnÕt
long ago that it used to be included in lawn seed and itÕs coming back a little bit today
the people started to do a little bit of that but that is a nitrogen fixing plant. ItÕs
working with bacteria to help improve the nitrogen in the soil, other than pulling weeds
by hand there are number of things you can do. I am going to give you six of them today.
If you get cheap seed itÕs going to have a lot of weed seeds in and you donÕt want
to do that, likewise when you are bringing in compost or when you are composting, you
want to make sure you are creating a hot compost pile or buying really good compost for most
of those weed seeds will have been killed because if you spread compost that has or
top soil that has horse tiller or something like that you are bringing that into your
garden. ItÕs not a great thing, so thatÕs number one as try to be clean. Second step
is balancing your soil fertility and actually thatÕs what I was going to bring out my soil
test for I remember now. So I am not going to get in much detail here
but when I look at this organic soil test result I can look especially at my main macronutrients
here. I can see my calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium those are all a [indiscernible 02:02]
which is certainly common but if we can balance those out based on the recommendations from
a good organic soil lab, we will start to see our weed pressure go down, a trusty hope
Now itÕs not always going to kill the weeds but if you just keep doing it a few times,
itÕs going to weaken them and eventually they wouldnÕt cause that much problem, but
dandelion, itÕs nice if you can pull up that by the tap root it takes so long, now for
me personally I leave most of the dandelions in my soil because I know they are doing a
lot of good work there but if I did want to get rid of them and this is one handed I would
just take a whole and boom, I didnÕt get rid of everything but I got rid of a lot,
you know the worms like to hang up right in the root zone of a weed. So, thatÕs another
reason weeds are good. Next, how I am going to stop that dandelion from coming up again,
well dandelions happen to be pretty strong, they keep come in back otherwise you can weaken
them over the time but the next step to controlling weeds is boom.
Throw a nice thick mulch in there leaves or straw or whatever you like to use for mulch,
I talked about that before but that is going to stop most weeds from coming up. LetÕs
go have a look at okay. LetÕs check out this new garden that I put in last fall, not a
whole lot of weeds going on in here either and thatÕs because of mulch, does so much
to stop weeds. I had a leaf mulching here over the fall and just actually in the last
couple of days having lend on a little straw because some of the leaves blew over to that
side of the garden, so now I am laying down straw, those are my two favorite kinds of
mulch and I do not have any weed problems in this garden.
The next step is to plan very densely, plant poly cultures which are groups of different
kinds of plants that all work together to help each other out and the shadow of the
soil, now I donÕt have much going on this year. Here is my little strawberry batch.
It doesnÕt have much weed problems because itÕs pretty dense on itÕs own when it gets
going and plant other things in there and I smoldered it with leaves so thatÕs not
a great example this time year and there is the last step right there if you are in a
pinch in it vinegar, just regular household vinegar, itÕs 5% ascetic acid by volume.
ItÕs going to get rid of some of those you know dandelions and those really strong perennials
but they do a really good job on animals and it will weaken perennials too just like aa
hoe does over the time. So, what you do here is you put this in a spray bottle and just
spray it especially nice for sidewalks and patios, but even a little bit in the garden
is not too big of a deal, now if you want something a little stronger, you can buy horticultural
vinegar, itÕs 10% to 30% ascetic acid now itÕs pretty caustic stuff very ascetic. It
can burn you, you got to be careful with it but it can be used with you know to kill more
perennial weeds, so those are your six steps. So how to kill weeds naturally, the big thing
here is to take a long review. So all of these other lessons I am teaching
you had a balance of your soil and get organic matter in there, all of that stuff is going
to create a soil that doesnÕt support weeds very well, they just wouldnÕt be able to
thrive there. So thatÕs the main one along with smoldering them out with a nice thick
organic mulch with very dense plantings or plants with a very dense healthy line, itÕs
especially important to balance your soil and have a good healthy line to compete weeds
there because in the garden we can put a thick mulch on and that can cover a lot.
So that allow me really need to make healthy and thatÕs what we gotta do that. So the
question today is what are your main problem weeds. If you can post that down below I will
try to give you some tips specifically on how to deal with those weeds or I will try
to tell you if there are any fertility issues that those weeds point to, other than that
you can read more detail in this article down below, you can subscribe to my free online
course down below that, you can join me on facebook.com/smilinggardener and I will see
you next week. How To Kill Weeds Naturally - My Best Organic
Weed Control Tips