The Hort Report: Time to start killing weeds and keeping them out of your flowerbeds

Now is the time to be cleaning your flowerbeds, getting them ready for planting in 2025.  

Killing weeds and keeping them out of your garden and flowerbeds is important, to growing vegetables and flowers. Now is a great time to be doing this. A weed is considered anything that grows where you don’t want it to grow. This can be weeds, grass or volunteer vegetables or flowers. Here are a few things to do to help keep weeds out of your garden and flowerbeds.  

First, try to kill all your weeds when they are small and haven’t released their new seeds yet. The smaller they are, the easier they are to kill. You need to be checking your garden and flowerbeds daily if possible to keep weeds under control.

If you are starting a new garden or flowerbed or expanding them, you can cover them with cardboard, black plastic, newspaper or magazines. Leaving this on the ground for days or weeks will help the weeds die. You should do this in the late fall or very early spring so you can plant in the spring. 

In early spring, you can pull or dig up weeds. Tilling or hoeing your garden or flowerbed is very important this time of year. Make sure you get all the roots of the weed, and make sure they lay out in the sun to dry out and die. If roots are left in the soil, they might continue to grow. Tilling is a way to kill weeds that is safe to you and the environment. 

When tilling, I like to till as deep I as can. This will help to get as many weeds and their roots tilled up and destroyed as possible. With sunlight and hot weather, the weeds and their roots should die and not regrow. 

Once your vegetables and flowers are up and growing. you will need to till and hoe the weeds in rows and around the plants. Keep the weeds from producing more seeds for the next generation of weeds to grow from.  

Mulching with straw, heavy layers of leaves, grass clippings, papers, saw dust or wood chips is another way to control and kill weeds. It is hard for weed seeds to come up through a thick layer of mulch. The mulch keeps sunlight, air and moisture from the weed seeds, so they can’t germinate. 

Spraying with an herbicide for weeds is another way to control weeds.  Make sure you use a selective herbicide that only kills weeds. That way you can spray weeds in your garden, flowerbeds and yard. I like to use 2-4D when spraying. It is a good selective herbicide that only kills weeds. 

When using any type of herbicide, make sure to be safe and careful. Follow the instructions on mixing and how to use it. Wear proper clothing, rubber gloves and boots. If the spray sticks to plants, it can stick to your shoes and hands. 

Don’t plant any type of seeds in the ground that you have sprayed with any type of herbicide. The ground will have the herbicide in the top few inches of the ground for several days. Any seeds planted in the ground will die as they start to germinate.   

Clean your garden tools once done cleaning one area and then start to clean weeds in another area.  This can be difficult to do. I will wash or wipe them off.

Using these tips should solve most of your weed problems.

I appreciate all of your questions in the past and look forward to them in the future. Thank you and please keep them coming. Call me at 573-588-2040, visit me at Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, email me at ci63468@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at Greenwell’s Greenhouse Group or ask me anytime you see me. 

Enjoy the great weather.

Pat Greenwell is the owner of Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, Mo. He was a high school agriculture teacher for 11 years. He has taught adult vocational agriculture since 1987. He also is a research assistant at the Truman State University Ag Department Farm.