Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Macroweeding

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A little rain and it’s time for macroweeding.

Here are my definitions:

Macroweeding: The process of grabbing a handful of weeds and yanking them out by the roots.

as opposed to

Microweeding: The process of snatching one weed at a time and yanking
it out by the roots.

I have been macroweeding this week. Sometimes it’s not only weeds that get pulled but overgrown and self-sown annuals. There is a great feeling of accomplishment as you accumulate a large pile of weeds in a short time.

Crab grass and goosegrass look too similar for me to care about identifying them. They are everywhere in this hot, humid weather. I yank, dig, pull, hoe. Here they were mixed in with sweet alyssum. The self-sown alyssum was overgrown so it came out with the weedy grass.

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Now on to microweeding - Purslane in the rose bed, dandelion in the ground cover, crab grass and creeping wood sorrel at the garden edge, and oxalis among the cosmos call for microweeding – a little more tedious but just as satisfying.
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Ah, tidy once again.

Share your weeding stories in the comments. What is your worst weed? What is your favorite method of weeding? Do you have a secret to keep weeds out of the garden?
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5 comments:

Joyce said...

I'm just seeing this post. And it's a good one. I like the Macro-weeding. Grab and pull after I water or after a rain. If we get any. The weed I battle with is "Zoysia" grass. That stuff leaps over concrete to get into beds. So I'm constantly pulling grass out of the front beds and "Wild Violets" in the back beds. No secrets because I pull every year so can't help there :) Garden looks so pretty with the Crape Mrytle.

Marie said...

Peeoknee,
I've heard Zoysia grass can be nasty. It has been so dry that even the weeds are drooping. But they survive! I am trying to pull them before they go to seed. It's a losing battle, I'm afraid. I have wild violets too. The crab grass is loving this hot humid weather. I should have a weed jungle when I get back from vacation. LOL, not!

Alison Kerr said...

My favorite weed is honey vine. It attracts and feeds mornarchs, including the caterpillars. It also attracts other small butterflies and I've seen goldfinches feeding on the masses of little yellow juice-sucking bug nymphs along the stems.

Weeding is not my favorite garden activity, though I do tend to do rather a lot of it. Last week I planted some cover crops to try and cut down the weeding work (it's been a monster weed year for me).

Marie said...

Thanks Alison,

I found the cover crop post on your blog very interesting. I may give it a try.

Tara Forrest said...

Interesting read thanks for sharing