When I first started my present organic garden, it had been totally farmland and therefore, it was full of weeds. It had no shape. It was like a typical farmers field, bumpy ground and obnoxious weeds. At first I felt rather daunted and overwhelmed by the job of creating this nightmare into an English Cottage garden. As I have lived in England, I knew what I wanted my garden to look like. I just was not sure that I had enough physical energy and determination to get the job done.

I have learned in life, that if you tackle a large project one step at a time, rather than look at a project in its entirety, you are more likely to achieve your goals. I had to think, just what do I want from my garden? Was it to be a place where I could relax, or a place to have wild poolside parties, or a place where I could lose myself in time? While weeding and creating, I chose the latter, but it is important if you are starting from scratch to know what kind of garden you want.

Gardens are never made by accident. Whether it’s a sterile plot or a space filled with plants, someone decides the precise arrangement they want and are prepared to maintain.

I broke all my own rules about garden planning and detail before getting started. I just went ahead and by instinct knew what I wanted. As my garden covers two acres of land, I really could not financially employ anyone to help to dig it all up and renew the soil, so I had to go it alone with my trusty spade and garden fork and my aching muscles and tubes of liniment!

I like rounded edges in my flowerbeds, not straight sided. I think rounded edges add softness to any design, but I had to angle the edges from the grass to stop the weeds from growing into the flowerbeds. I thought that would work, but I soon found out differently. I think some of the weeds I encountered had roots going down 50 feet! As soon as I would dig them out, they just came back. This was very discouraging and backbreaking, but I was determined to go ahead. My philosophy is to never use harmful chemicals, so it was by hand! To win the war, you have to know the nature of weeds.

How Do Weeds Thrive?

Weeds grow either from seed or they reproduce from their roots. The roots grow outward from the parent plant and produce new plants, springing up from lateral roots, creating more parent plants. The process just goes on and on and the weeds thrive. We must remember that weeds are just plants growing in the wrong place. They need water, sunlight and nutrition to survive.

How to Prevent Them From Thriving

The easiest of these essentials for a gardener to control is sunlight. Before mulching, remove all vegetation from your planting area and, using a hoe, undercut the roots and remove the plant, roots and all. Then turn the soil by hand. You may decide to turn it again after a few days have passed. This brings the roots that were left in the soil to the top and the sun will dry them out and make them less viable. It also disturbs the weed seeds that have started to germinate, which makes them less viable. The longer you continue this process, the more weeds you eliminate from your garden.

Before mulching, place newspaper (about 8 layers thick) over the soil and place the mulch on top. The newspaper blocks the sunlight from reaching the soil, which keeps weed growth to a minimum. As it decomposes, it will not affect the appearance of your garden.

After 6 years of battling with my own weeds, I am not sure who is winning the battle, but I am determined to win the war!!

I hope you will be able to reach your own goals and realize that nothing is impossible when determination and creativity are your partners.

There is a lot of interesting information in my soon to be released ebook” How To Master Affordable Organic Gardening.”

You can’t just go to the grocery and buy corn gluten. As with other garden remedies, corn gluten is commercially available from garden supply companies. It can still be a little tricky to find these products in mainstream garden centers, so one of the easiest ways to purchase them for use is through an online garden retailer that specializes in organic gardening, such as Gardens Alive.

Why Use a Pre-Emergence Herbicide in the Autumn?

If you are devoted to your lawn, or have a perennial garden with over-eager plants that constantly re-seed, using a pre-emergence herbicide can be a big help, in terms of time, money and the environment. Obviously, using a synthetic, chemical treatment is not idea. However, research at Iowa State University has shown that corn gluten consistently provides a pre-emergence benefit when used over a period of years at the right time, seasonally.

When you hand-pull weeds, you loosen soil, which leads to erosion, and sediment problems in a watershed. Hand-pulling also takes time, and isn’t usually feasible for an entire lawn. A granular product like corn gluten that can be applied with a normal rotary spreader will act as a weed suppressant and as a source of nitrogen.

Timing of Application

The key to success when using a pre-emergence herbicide is applying it at the correct time. There are generally two cycles of weeds throughout the year:

• Spring - Weeds that sprout in the spring and thrive during the summer
• Fall – weeds that sprout during the fall and thrive during the winter.

In order to prevent the weeds from sprouting, you need to put down pre-emergence herbicide before the weeds sprout. For summer weeds, you need to apply pre-emergence herbicide when the temperature is above 50 degrees for three or four days in a row. For winter weeds, apply pre-emergence in September.

As you begin to use corn gluten to prevent weeds, you will learn the right timing for application to stop weeds in your area.

For a more in-depth article on corn gluten, including a list of several suppliers, click here.

Fire at Fort Ticonderoga

I used to be the Curator of Landscape at Fort Ticonderoga.  I really loved taking care of The King’s Garden, the restored, 1920s era formal flower garden.  You can see pictures here.  The new Curator, Heidi, is doing a superb job.  One part I don’t miss is trying to control the weeds in the yards and yards of brick walkways, all of which had been re-laid as part of the restoration in the late ’90s, early 2000s.  In order to not remove all of the sand between the bricks, we had to be careful about hand-pulling the weeds, limiting hand-weeding to weeds with huge taproots, like dandelions.  I wasn’t then, as I’m not now, a fan of spraying glyphosate everywhere, so I had to come up with other options.  Basically, that option was a torch attached to a propane tank, and a staff member, I’ll call him “Joe.”  (His name has been changed to protect his privacy.  I’m not kidding.  One time, we had the local news at the Garden and he didn’t want to be on camera.  I think he was joking, but I’m not entirely sure.) A torch from Red Dragon is a popular model.

Joe was diligent about his weed-burning task.  Sometimes, I would walk into the garden and the smell of singed roses would greet me.  These would be the roses that had lived through abandonment, drought, flooding, restoration, lifting, moving and 80 years of neglect and abuse.  Singed.  Smouldering. Smoking.  Did you know that lavender smells lovely when it is on fire?  Chipmunks love toasted hollyhock seeds just as much as they love them straight off the plant.

The one thing I can say about the weed burning, though, is that it worked.  It was the only thing that worked.  The masons were not a fan of this weed control method, because it was their torch we kept taking.  It isn’t the most cost-effective solution when you have so much area to cover.  It is, however, great if you have a relatively small driveway or sidewalk that has weed issues.  Here’s the skinny on using a weed burning torch in your garden.

Weeding with Fire

• Soil insulates the roots of the plant well, so it may take a couple of times of knocking the weed down and letting it grow back, only to knock it down again.  Eventually, you will exhaust the resources of the weed.
• Don’t use the fire around mulch.  This should go without saying, but you would be surprised.  Mulch, leaves and dry plant material can catch on fire and burn quickly.
• Wear safety glasses.
• Using a torch is easiest in areas of sidewalks, driveways and other paved areas.
• Use a torch that connects to a full-size propane tank.  Do not use a backpack propane tank.  Do you really want to wear a pressurized, highly flammable gas on your back?  Didn’t think so.

UPDATE: I found this great example on Amazon. I gave it a try out and the results were amazing, but most of all it’s GREAT FUN! There’s no better way to feel in command of your garden than spraying it with fire (responsibly of course).

Corn gluten meal is a waste product of corn from the wet processing method used to make corn syrup or cornstarch. Corn gluten meal is 60% protein and 10% nitrogen, by weight. Research at Iowa State University has determined that corn gluten is an effective preemergence herbicide, which means that it kills the weeds at the time of germination. The gluten does not affect mature plantings. This makes it ideal for weed control for lawns and established gardens. The nitrogen content of corn gluten meal also makes it a natural fertilizer.

How Corn Gluten Works as a Preemergence Herbicide

Corn gluten is best for preventing weeds from sprouting, or killing them immediately after they sprout. The corn gluten works as a weed killer because it inhibits plants from growing roots. A seed might sprout and grow a “shoot,” which is the top part of the plant, but it will not be able to grow a root, and thus will not be able to survive. Be aware that it harms or kills many other plant seeds as well, so if you plan to reseed your lawn, wait about six weeks before seeding.

For corn gluten to work well, it must be watered in, and then allowed to dry. Heavy rains can cause plants to recover from the treatment with gluten, grow a root and survive.

Application of Corn Gluten for Weed Control

For corn gluten to be most effective controlling weeds, it should be applied in the fall and the spring. There are cool season weeds and warm season weeds, and because corn gluten acts as a preemergence herbicide, it is important to apply it before weeds begin to sprout at the beginning of the season.

NOW is the time to apply corn gluten meal for fall weed control. As you begin to use corn gluten for weed control in your established planting areas, you will see better results with time. Weed control will reach maximum effectiveness after four years of application at the right time during the season. Each season, the amount of corn gluten you will need to apply will be lower. For the first several years of application, the recommended application rate is 20 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. of area.

Where to Find Corn Gluten Meal

Corn gluten weed control products are not available at every garden center or hardware store, but they are becoming more readily available.

As with all gardening ventures, using corn gluten for weed control is partially an exercise in patience. Research proves that it does work, and it is a much safer form of weed control for people, pets and the environment.

Condensed information and directions can be found at Pesticide.org.

A beautiful flagstone patio. A charming brick walk. And a bunch of weeds. Killing weeds in between patio and walk stones is a never ending chore for gardeners. If your patio is set in sand, you really can’t pull all of the weeds because you will also pull up the sand and cause the stones or pavers to move. To prevent weeds for long term, it’s best to rebuild your walkway with new sand, gravel and landscape fabric underneath. But for older walkways with weeds peeking through, what is the answer without using synthetic weed killer? Try boiling water!

The boiling water weed killing technique is best used on walks and driveways. You can’t exactly pour boiling water into the middle of your flower garden, because it’ll kill your flowers as well.

It works this way: simply boil water in the tea kettle and pour it on the offending weeds. They will immediately fall flat and begin to shrivel, including the roots. In a couple days they will be gone (or you can easily clean up the dead leaves). This is the most effective way to kill weeds in brick and stone walks without putting anything detrimental or chemical into the ground.

Some people like to use vinegar for killing weeds in their organic gardens. Vinegar only works for tender, immature plants, and it is also very acidic. Using too much vinegar can end up lowering the pH of your garden in more areas than just the walk where you use the vinegar.

For easy, low-impact and chemical-free, weed killing, boiling water works like a charm!