Your 3-step guide to a weed-free garden

No more weeds! If you have a garden, weeds are not your friend. But don’t give up. I’ve got some spectacular tips to creating your own weed-free garden. Come take a look.

My husband has worked years and years to grow an amazing garden in our backyard. However, the weeds always seem to take over every season. With four little kids, we don’t have the time to weed every single day. So, together we came up with some simple steps to prevent the weeds from taking over. Here they are:

Step #1: Spray weed killer early in the season

In Utah, we do all of our main planting after Mother’s Day in May. However, the weeds start to pop up well before that. So, my husband carefully sprays weed killer on all of the weeds on our garden. This prevents a lot of the weeds from spreading too quickly early on.

You need to be careful when using weed killer however, because it basically kills any living plants. Click here for some tips to using weed killer. If you’re not a fan of the chemicals in weed killer, try this all-natural homemade weed killer.

Step #2: Lay down weed barrier

As with weed killer, weed barrier is a wonderful way to keep those pesky weeds from popping up. But not all weed barrier is created equal. There are some pretty cheap types of weed barrier that will only last one season. You’ll want to use heavy duty woven weed control fabric. We have had ours for seven years and it still works great.

The only draw back to weed barrier is that it can be expensive. We only laid our down on three rows of our garden. Then we just rotate the varieties of vegetables plants on these rows from year to year. Just cut a small “X” in the spots where you will be planting and fold in the corners.

Step #3: Lay Preen and grass clippings

A weed-free garden needs one more preventative step and that’s Preen. Some people worry about Preen killing their vegetables, but that’s not the case if you do it right. First, plant your seed, wait for it to pop up and then sprinkle the Preen.

Once you have the Preen down, add a layer of grass clippings around your plants. It helps keep the sun from shining down on those pesky weeds.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Preen is, click here to learn more. We’ve had a lot of success with the combination of Preen and grass clippings. It prevents most of the weeds from coming up.

Here’s a video that shows how we prevent the weeds from coming up in our own garden. Take a gander:

Other helpful tools to a weed-free garden

The steps above should prevent most of the weeds from growing in your garden. However, for those remaining pesky weeds, here’s some helpful tools that will make your life easier.

• Save your back, use a winged weeder
• Weed in style with a garden cart
• Be nice to your knees with a thick kneeling pad

Hopefully these ideas are helpful as you are working on your weed-free garden. What are some other ideas that you might have to control the weeds in your garden? Leave your comments below.

Related link: How to prune backyard raspberries