Among gardeners who like to stay natural and environment friendly, a no-till policy is not uncommon.
Plowing into the soil loosening and breaking it up only helps with soil erosion, helping the rain and the wind blow off topsoil, and of course helping the rain drain off pesticides into the ground. But over the last couple of years, it has become increasingly difficult to keep this commitment. They’ve called in the tilling machines to rip up the soil, and to mix in herbicides. They’ve had enough of terribly stubborn weeds that seem tosuffocate every other garden plant around. They are the new scourge of the gardening enthusiast, the gardening problem to end all gardening problems – they are the superweeds – yes even here in Vermont.
It’s the same thing that has happened with people and bacteria. People have been recklessly popping pills for decades now and bacteria and other organisms have just become used to them; health documentaries on the Discovery Channel can’t stop trumpeting how the future will just about be all about battling tenacious super germs that will just laugh at all standard drugs you could throw at them. In the same way, gardeners across the country are beginning to battle gardening problems that come from super weeds – with the use of super toxic herbicides. When they can, they’ll try to rip the weeds out by hand – but it often just takes too much time and effort.
One of the best ways to stay ahead of the game is indeed to keep your gardens and beds free of weeds from the very beginning. Many of these new weeds – horseweed and ragweed – have spread from the large-scale farms to our backyards, to our gardens – for supersize industrial scale gardening problems for all of us.
Most people simply are not willing to keep up with the work required to do this by hand. If you are organically minded, or at least lean toward being environmentally friendly, you might be surprised at just how reasonable it can be to hire someone to take care of weeding for you.
Purple and Sage is a locally owned company, and we pride ourselves on both our quality and reasonable prices. Call us – we’ll give you a free estimate on your project whether it’s a one-time job or a continuous maintenance project.