MANAGING WEEDS, NATURALLY

Weeds are never far away but you can keep them at bay without recourse to weedkillers

- Becky Searle

As the temperatures creep up and the daylight hours extend almost imperceptibly, there is much uncertainty around the season ahead. Will we have a long, dry summer that will put a strain on our water butts or a wet one that makes us feel as though we never quite shrugged off winter? But one thing is guaranteed with the arrival of spring and the subsequent onset of summer: weeds.

With winter's complacency behind us, even if we haven't yet changed our clothes, it's time for the unrelenting struggle against our least favourite plants to commence. The only question is whether our power to knock them back will outstrip their uncanny ability to pop up absolutely everywhere.

Annual weeds are very successful and really quite remarkable plants. They are able to grow at a speed that seems to defy nature and then go to flower and set seed seemingly within moments. We can hoe all of our weeds out and take five minutes for a cup of tea, only to find that the weeds have popped up again in the time it's taken us to sink a brew. This rapid and almost miraculous growth can be attributed to these plants preferring a particular type of nitrogen called nitrates.

In all soils, nitrogen is present in two different forms: nitrates and ammonium. Most plants thrive on a balance of both, which helps to generate steady and strong growth. Annual weeds, however, whose only goal is to reproduce and colonise as much of your garden as possible, don't care much for strong and steady growth.

HEALTHY SOILS