Let's talk about weeds. No, not the Mary Louise Parker vehicle, and not the smoky-smoke kind. The ugly, prickly, insidious kind that crowds out friendlier plants.
With two little kids, about 17 jobs, and a house to take care of, I've given up my customary gardening this year save for a few tomato and basil plants. But that leaves fertile ground, literally, for weeds to come in and take over. Even if I were not attempting a more green lifestyle, I have plants in there I want to encourage, so soaking the beds with Roundup and being done with it is out — not to mention I’d rather my kids not eat tomatoes that had been so recently exposed to God-knows-what chemical herbicides.
And then there's our lawn. Suffice it to say when a photo of my daughter, husband and dog on the front walk of our house ran in a local publication last year, more than a few people commented not on the significant cuteness of all three, but on the visibly weedy lawn.
Good old Organic Gardening mag to the rescue (I remember my dad getting this in the 1970s — these guys were green way before it was trendy). They have a whole section on identifying, treating and eradicating weeds. I've already done one thing, mulched the hell out of the beds. Extra bonus, now I know exactly what a hoe is for. With a little more work, soon I can spend weekends in the yard with a glass of iced tea instead of sweating over the weeds outside.
