Hello dear gardenhivers here at @gardenhive! I hope your plants are doing well and you’re staying happy taking care of them.
This is my entry for Week 10 of the Hive Garden Question on how to deal with persistent weeds without resorting to poisonous chemicals - Reflections on Weeds and Poison. The war on weeds has always been a struggle for every farmer and gardener, especially when dealing with persistent and ever-invading unwanted plants. They grow even faster than your crops, so it’s really hard to eliminate them. The above picture shows our lady’s fingers being choked by the tall weeds swarming around them. It’s a wide plantation, so I am bracing myself for the hard labor awaiting us.
Long before, we used to spray herbicides such as Demolition X to eliminate unwanted plants invading our crops. But we noticed that the said chemical seemed to deplete the nutrients in the ground, causing negative effects to our plants. It disrupted soil health and reduced fertility. It also polluted nearby water forms, plants, and other living organisms, destroying the balance of biodiversity.
One of the worst effects I hated is when the fruits of our cucumbers tasted bitter, instead of bland with a balance of a little sweetness. It must have been due to the chemicals in the soil that caused the nutrient imbalance, leading to the abundant production of cucurbitacins. These are the compounds responsible for the bitter taste.
After realizing its negative effects, we stopped using herbicides and started practicing the natural method of weeding – that is, manually pulling weeds out of the ground. My father usually uses a hoe to make weeding faster and less of a hassle. We noticed that when the soil is dry, it’s easier to use the hoe to remove weeds, and we use the ‘bolo’ or just our bare hands to pull out weeds near the plants to avoid destroying their roots. It’s laborious, but we are 100% sure that the plants are safe and the soil maintains its natural contents and remains healthy for plants. We used to add compost to naturally fertilize the soil.
We also found a technique to avoid these weeds from invading our crops. It’s simply by regular weeding. We need to schedule at least an hour each day to pull out weeds in the garden. In this way, these weeds won’t have many opportunities to thrive and infest our garden. It is tedious, but the benefits outweigh the inconvenience in the long run.
Our newly purchased grass cutter will be of great help to the regular weeding activities to maintain our garden clean and free from weeds. We bought it last week, and we tried cleaning our front yard first, and this time (in the above picture), I started cleaning our Lady’s finger plantation in the backyard. The grass is really tall and we badly need to cut it. Weeding around their stems would be easier if there were no disruptive tall grass along the way. And we can also till the ground more easily if we cut the tall, thick grass covering it. I just need to be careful not to cut the stems.
I hope you learn some useful tips, and I am also looking forward to learning from you if you have better advice or any effective ways you do in your garden without using chemicals.
Let’s promote natural ways and say no to poisonous chemicals.
