Weeding

The best time to get rid of unwanted plants is while the left side of the moon is lit. At this time most plants are concentrating on their flowers and seeds, weeds that normally won't budge when pulled, come out easily. Seed heads allow to mature now will surely drop their seed during the next moon phase. It is also the time to prune to discourage growth. How can I use this to my advantage?

Well let's look at the lowly comfrey plant. It is a perennial who self sows readily, although valueable in it's own right can quickly overtake a garden space. You are best to catch the little seedlings before they develop much of a root. Once established they are very hard to get rid of. I cut my flowers off 3 times a year.

They are a wonderful plant for attracting bees to the garden. Comfrey is used as a medicinal herb. It also speeds up decomposition in the compost. I use it to mulch, or smother, weeds around other plants too.

Weeding

Weeds are the yin yang of the garden. Recognize the ones you can work with and the ones that always must be eradicated promptly. This takes a few seasons to do as different weeds sprout and grow in different temperatures.

Grass is the number one enemy of the gardener. It not only robs your plants of sunlight and nutrients, but it can wrap around plant roots and strangle the plant to death. It not only starts from stray seeds blown in, grows vigorously underground. To remove grass from a garden bed, you must reach into the soil and remove the root too. Any little piece of root left will grow more grass very quickly.

We have a perennial buttercup here, which is very pretty, but nothing else can grow where it grows. It too must be pulled with its roots. Bindweed grows quickly and wraps itself quickly around young seedlings and old plants alike.

Dandelion is not a weed in my garden. Its long root brings nutrients from deep in the soil for my vegetables to use. When young its leaves are yummy, when large they cover the ground making a living mulch for my other vegetables. I keep them cut short so they won't make too much shade. When I need to add a plant to my garden, I pull out a dandelion and use that hole since the soil it perfect. In the fall I pull the biggest ones to dry the root for winter drinks. Dandelion root and leaves are extremely nutritious and should be eaten by everyone.

Learn about the weeds that are in your yard, be able to identify them and how they might be an ally in the garden. While it is true the wind brings in new seeds every year, mostly you will be dealing with the same weeds year after year. Some are delicious like chickweed, pigsweed and purslane. Some weeds improve the soil, some encourage decomposition in the compost, some deter plants. I could go on, I go into much more detail in my book.

I sprinkle fill my vegetable beds with edible weed seeds, collected the previous summer, to compete with the local weeds that are not edible. Eventually all my weeds are edible and there is no wasted space in the garden.

Start weeding furthest from the house. As you pick divide the weeds into 3 groups: one for the compost pile, two for the barnyard, and three for the house.

Weed early in the day.
Don't weed when it is raining, it is easy to spread disease in the garden.
Weed after a good rain when the foliage is no longer wet.
Weeds come out the easiest and are more permanently destroyed when removed each month two weeks after a full moon. That is to say, the week before the new moon.
Pull unwanted weeds every chance you get. If time is short, or the weeds out of hand, get rid of the grass first and then remove the weed tops (the flowers to stop more weed seeds being produced).

Weeding is the part of gardening that makes a gardener great.

Planting by the Moon

What you won’t read on a seed packet is when to plant them. Knowing this critical factor is crucial to being able to grow food most effectively. You can bury seeds to fit your schedule, but they will sprout and grow on their own schedule. How do we know the ideal times for garden chores? The reflection of the moon, in its predictability, is to cue your participation.
From when there is no moon until the moon is full, plant annuals and biennials that produce food above ground. During the week following the full moon, plant perennials, trees and bushes, and biennial root vegetables. Seeds planted in this way have the best chance for strong germination and development. They will grow to their fullest potential joined with the forces of nature.
The following week, when the left side of the moon is lit, until there is no moon at all, no planting is done. Instead, this week is for removing unwanted plants and attacking unwanted insects. Trim plants that have grown too large now to discourage new growth. It is the ideal time to harvest food so it will keep well during long term storage.
It is a relief to surrender to the power of nature by planting and harvesting by these ancestral edicts. Do not underestimate the force that rules the entire the world. From the tides created to pull the world forward through loss and gain, winter and summer, birth and death, is the same water which will bring your seed to life.
I don't need to link this one, I wrote it all by myself.