A few years ago,  I decided not to mulch a good chunk of our garden, in the interest of seeing how hard it was to maintain if mulch materials became scarce.  I love permanent mulch – I love the way the soil improves under it, I love the way that the soil stays moist when it is dry and also handles heavy rainfall better, and I love sitting on the warm mulch while I pick tomatoes or cucumbers. But I don’t want to be too dependent upon any particular gardening method, so I left a patch in front of the house (on the theory that sheer embarrassment might encourage me to weed) unmulched and went about my business.

This was partly fueled by a discussion I had a few years ago with a woman I met who is an herbalist and gardener at Sturbridge Village (an 1830s living history museum), and  who pointed out that most garden descriptions of the time are very unconcerned with weeding.   Many 19th century gardeners  permitted large quantities of weeds to grow up as mulch underneath plantings, just pulling them as they began to shade other plants.

I’ve used weeds as mulch a few times by accident, but this, (besides proving that embarrassment will not drive me to weeding if there is anything more fun to do ), was my first formal experiment. I have to say, I think the weeds in the net did me more good than bad, as long as I thought carefully about the kinds of weeds I left in.  Now obviously those of you with moisture shortages or very tight spaces probably won’t have this luxury, but my observation so far has been that as long as the weeds aren’t allowed to take over completely, or to shade out food plants, that the competition isn’t a bad one, necessarily.

My weedy tomatoes actually grew faster than the mulched ones, and set fruit earlier than mulched varieties of the same species.  I managed the weeds, rather than completely getting rid of them. Some, we ate or use for medicinal purposes, and that takes care of that. I pulled out the lambsquarters and wild salsify as I ate them, but don’t worry too much about them when they are small. I let some of the wild oats that weren’t too much in the way mature, and will feed them to the chickens. I even transplanted a few over to a better spot .

The mulleins I left because I think they are pretty, because I make mullein flower oil for earaches, and if there’s ever a shortage, the leaves make terrific toilet paper. Some of the greens (extra plantain that we don’t want, pigweeds, chickweed) went straight to the chickens and geese as harvested feed. Then, there are some weeds I was actually delighted to see – I’d never had them before, and I want them.  I’m encouraging the wild yarrow to grow, since I find it better for medicinal purposes than the stuff I cultivate, and it is a  lovely plant - one of my favorite wildflowers. That was the first year I had either purslane or stinging nettle anywhere on the property – I’ve always had to forage elsewhere, and I’m more than a little pleased to see them. Both are fairly well-behaved (in that they don’t really take over), and very good to eat (use gloves with the nettles, and cook them first).

I’m also excited to see teasel here – people in upstate NY used to grow fields of them for the wool processing industry in the 19th century, and I’m planning on harvesting mine for the same reason. Plantain I like to let go to the green seed stage, and then harvest and dry the seed heads – they make marvelous free birdfood in the winter. Pigweeds and other wild amaranths are great for the same purpose – although you don’t want to let the seeds completely mature. Bedstraw and Burdock are allowed to mature until just before they set seeds, and used for dyeing and eating respectively.

I also always allow some weeds to go to flower on the fringes of the garden. Along with the dill and cilantro and flowers I plant to attract pollinators, I notice that queen anne’s lace and mullein are good insect attractants, as is the yarrow and the wild thyme.  All of them seem to enhance my squash yields.

Canada and Bull thistle get taken right out, as do a few others, like ground ivy.  There are some weeds about which nothing good can be said (at least by me) and out they go.  I reserve the right to kick out any weed that takes more than its fair share, or sticks me with prickers when I step on it. But for the most part, weeding is a desultory chore for me, done at a fairly low key. As long as the plants aren’t too crowded or shaded, and the weeds are useful ones to me, leaving them be doesn’t seem to do a lot of harm to *most* crops, and the weeds will generally get pulled for whatever purpose eventually.

There are exceptions – peppers here are easily shaded out by faster growing weeds, and carrots can’t handle any weed pressure at all. But for every crop that needs hand weeding, there are those, like bush beans, zinnias, tomatoes and corn that on fertile soil, with adequate moisture, seem entirely untroubled by competition, and that will eventually shade out the weeds on their own.

My math so far suggests that I actually take more useful plants off of my land when I plant a little further apart and allow some weed competition than when I plant my own food plants more tightly together.

One of the biggest pests in my garden is the tomato. No matter how diligently I harvest, every year I spend more time pulling out fast growing tomato volunteers than I do burdock or thistles. They tend to shade everything out, because they grow so fast. I leave some, of course, but it does point out that even in my cold climate, I could probably rely for much of my tomato crop on volunteers, provided I didn’t mind waiting until September to harvest (I do).

I went back to mulching the next year - but I left some space for the mullein, purslane and wild yarrows. But the other advantage of leaving the weeds, assuming you can afford the loss in moisture and fertility, is that pulled weeds make an excellent mulch in and of themselves. If I ever run out of straw and undercropping material, I probably will do just that and allow the weeds to grow up, pull them, and use them to smother the rest.

I think it worth praising the weeds, at least once in a while,before I squish them .

(Ed note: The picture above came from a flickr account, but I doubt much that Sharon’s garden looks much different!)