My Weed Control Program

The plot of dirt next to my house that I call my garden was filled with weeds and weed seed.  I had no doubt that if I did not control them, they would out compete and smother anything that I planted in my garden.  I was determined to control these weeds.

Weed coverage a little more than a week after I watered my dirt.

I’m going to bust out a big fancy word.  Integrated pest management.  I took a whole class on integrated pest management in college.  In reality, the concept of integrated pest management is so simple, and it boggles my mind that people don’t get it.

•  Integrated Pest Management (my own definition) – Common sense.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM for short) is so simple!  All IPM entails is using multiple methods to control pests.  Whether it be weeds, insects, or disease, it will be more effective to use multiple methods of control rather than just one.  That is what IPM boils down to.  Doesn’t that make complete sense?  People get all impressed when they hear about IPM, but it’s really nothing special.  Some “green” businesses even use IPM as a big fancy selling point!  Although, maybe it is because I hear and see so many people not using it.

People think they can go to Home Depot, buy an herbicide, spray their weeds, and then be done with weed control.  Wrong! It takes more than one spray to control weeds in your garden!  Okay sorry I’m ending my rant now.

Okay so I’ve given you my take on the definition of IPM, and what not to do, but I haven’t given an example.  So, here is an example.  And it just so happens that it is my own weed control program.

Zach’s IPM Approach to Eliminating Weeds

• Follow OCD habits and clip off every seed head from every weed in garden
• Manually dig up and turn over every weed in garden with a shovel
• Follow weed seed bank control cycle (I did this about 5 times!)
• Liberally irrigate entire garden
• Wait for dormant weed seeds to germinate
• Manually till them under when they are baby weeds
• Repeat

• Continue with a preventative weed control program
• Constantly monitor for weed germination
• Manually pull any straggler weeds
• Use smart planting techniques that will cut down weed seed germination and survivability
• Adjust program if needed based on monitoring observations

That is my program that I have followed so far.  This is already a long post again.  For now, this will have to do.  In my next post I will explain my program, as well as how it fits into the definition of IPM.