Weeds

Weeds are taking over the garden.  In a no till garden, weeds are supposedly, eventually going to decrease over time because, again supposedly, by not stirring up the soil but by building it through mulch, weed pressures will gradually diminish.  Well, right now we have tons of weed pressure as they call it.  I'm feeling a little defeated.

Here's my overall strategy:

• pull some every morning to at least to keep some under control
• Chop and drop to use as ground cover BEFORE they go to seed.  They seem to go to seed very rapidly before I can catch them.
• Use cardboard to smother really bad areas if I can
• Gardening company will come a burn them away at some point during the summer (but until then I have to keep them from taking over)
• Learn to see if there are any benefits to the weeds.  For instance, we can eat dandelions.

I am trying to learn to identify all the weeds currently invading my garden.

This is a wild morning glory or bindweed.  It strangles out all the shrubs and wraps around everything.  It also grows thorns eventually.  It is a big problem in the front garden.

More bindweed.  It grows super fast.

This, below, is something called Horse Nettle which I had never heard of before and I don't believe I have encountered it in our yard before.  It is nasty!  Very thorny stem which makes it hard to weed without thick gloves.  It grows super fast as well (I guess all weeds do) and it has invaded my herb garden especially.

The photo below actually shows three different weeds that are taking over.  The St. John's Wort with yellow flowers are on the left of the photo. They are supposed to be there! The green clump at the top and the bottom of the photo is wild violet.  These pretty weeds, lovely when in bloom ,are aggressively taking over everything in my yard, my front lawn and all over all other areas of the yard.  I really need to get it under control.  In the middle is a dandelion, which I really feel no enmity toward as it is an early pollinating plant for bees and we do eat the greens from it.  And finally to the right of the photo is creeping sorrel.  I need to research this to see if it has any benefits.  It is a very delicate, low growing plant, very easy to weed.  I don't feel too hostile towards it either.

Japanese Stilt Grass is another major annoyance.  It grows everywhere and so quickly, it is impossible to keep up.  This is the weed I most think smothering with cardboard will work.

Below is Common Mugwort.  I have one area of my yard where I can not get anything to grow except this stuff.  I have been trying to get rid of it over the years and it always comes back, hardier than ever. I might try smothering it with cardboard too. 

The weed below looks innocuous enough.  I think it is called Boneset and apparently it is poisonous to cattle!  How it got in my yard I do not know.  Luckily I do not have cattle to worry about.  I do have a cat who occasionally likes to snack on grass.  Hopefully, he won't confuse the two.  This weed is popping up here and there all over the place.  I just pull it up when I notice it.  It's pretty easy to weed.

The photo below is Fleabane, which has delicate little daisy like flowers, quite pretty.  I haven't been very aggressive about weeding this one.  Will I live to regret my leniency?  I must admit I am a sucker for wildflowers.

Here's a pumpkin volunteer that comes back in the same spot year after year.  Well, maybe it's only been three or four years.  I keep forgetting about it and letting grow wild and it winds up taking over the garden by the Lenten Roses.  This year I am determined to learn how to prune it back so we can get a nice pumpkin for Halloween.

And finally (at least for this post!  I have more weeds I could talk about) this is a black walnut that has decided to grow up in the middle of my Spirea in the front garden.  Black walnuts are toxic to other plants near them, so I had better get this one cut down before he does any damage.