Weeds

Weeds use two strategies to spread: by spreading out with roots or by scattering seed.

So the way to get rid of the weeds: pull off the flower heads and put them in a bucket to rood down before you add them to the compost heap.

Make sure you dig the roots out rather then just trying to pull up the weed.

Seeds can make a journey of long distances. They can be blown on  the wind or hitch themselves to a passing animal, and so  arrive without warning in your garden. 

Annual weeds rely on this method to get anywhere, while perennials can fall back to an underground approach to keep marching on. We dread this lot.

The  loathsome types are brambles (rooting stems), buttercups (runners or stolons – stems that creep along the ground), ground elder and bindweed (rhizomes – subterranean stems), dock and dandelion (tap roots), mare’s tail,  Japanese knotweed (both rhizomes) and creeping thistles (spreading roots and seed). If you  dig them out and leave bits of root behind , in all likelyhood, they will regrow.

The  only way to deal with the biggest weeds will be to  dig them out nonetheless. 

There is a form of gardening called “Lasagne gardening” – where you layer sheets of cardboard and rough biological martial  on top of the soil –  This method, they say can defeat them, however that is not so. Take away the cardboard and up they come.