Gardening Tip: Weeding

The Gardening Tip of the Month is provided by Growing Gardens, a partner organization of the YMCA of Boulder Valley.

July can be a discouraging month to garden on the Front Range. More than likely, you will have small green fruits on your tomato plants, but you will still be waiting patiently for the delicious fruits of your labor. This is the month when I notice signs of neglect in my neighbors’ plots. It is hot, dry, and the weeds seem to shoot up at a breathtaking pace. This is when the work of gardening becomes so important.

One of the most common annual weeds in Boulder is Lamb’s Quarter (Chenopodium album). The leaves and young shoots of the plant are edible, but if you don’t want to eat them, you want to get them out of your garden. Fortunately, when the weeds are young they do not have a well-established root system and are therefore easy to remove. As the plants grow, it becomes harder and harder to pull them out. If you really get behind on weeding and the plant goes to seed, you can be in real trouble the next year. A single lamb’s quarter plant can produce more than 75,000 seeds. These seeds can remain viable for decades. 

In other words, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Keep up the good work that you’ve invested in your garden already. Think of weeding as the most productive exercise you can get — using your body to feed your body —and remember, you’re almost to the bountiful rewards of the harvest season!

Learn more about Growing Gardens here.