Weeds

My husband has a theory about garbage.  He says if you leave it unattended, it will attract more garbage.  I have the same theory about weeds.  I believe it is better to weed for 10 minutes every day than for an hour on Sunday.  By then it is a job.  No one wants to spend an hour weeding.  But most people can be talked into 10 minutes of the task.

Never pass up a weed.  If you say "I'll get it later" you won't.  Then there will be two of them.  Then you will say "I'll set aside some time tomorrow."  And you won't.  Whenever I do my garden walk through I take my weed pan with me.  You have to get down there to look for squash bugs anyway, you may as well pause for 5 seconds and grab that weed.  And that one over there.

There are always weedy enemies lurking in the hard to reach places

Whenever I harvest I bring my weed pan to that bed.  Harvesting peas is not as conducive to weeding as say lettuce is.  You won't be down on your knees.  But you will be looking deep into the pea plants looking for pods.  If there is a weed staring back, grab it!  Then take 5 steps back and drop it in the pan.  You can do it!

Lettuce is easy to weed as I pick

My enamelware weed pan is my trusty companion

It takes me about a week to fill this pan.  It stays in the garden all season.  It is cute enough not to be an eyesore.  It is heavy enough not to blow away in a storm.  It's big enough to hold a week's worth of weeds (mainly because I pull them before they get too big).  Now, if you've ignored all my previous advice about raised beds, intensive planting, not turning your soil and mulching, and you have weeds in volume that requires a hoe or a tiller, then I can't help you.  You're just going to have to spend your Sunday weeding.  I'm going to spend mine in the shade admiring my garden.

My Pea Patch in 2008, the last year before we put in the raised beds
Wow, that looks like a lot of work!