The Popular Gardening Method That Actually Causes Weeds To Keep Coming Back

Tilling your soil is a common method to prepare the ground in your garden properly for the growing season. Some people swear that if you're a beginning gardener, a tool you absolutely need is a rototiller. But turning the soil deeply often brings dormant weed seeds to the surface, where they are exposed to air and sunlight. The result can be an explosion of new weeds in your garden plot that you didn't have before. It can be hard to decide if mechanical tillage will enrich your soil or if it will just result in more weeds in your garden. 

Of course, many gardeners consider tilling the number one method for removing perennial weeds. It can be a necessary process at the beginning of the growing season or when you are trying to prepare a brand new plot of land or amend heavy clay soil. If you do decide to till your garden soil, follow steps that do not encourage weed regrowth. When tilling, break up the soil thoroughly, then cover the entire bed to smother weeds. Adding a selective weed killer into the soil at this stage can also stop new weed emergence. Be careful, however, as a common mistake beginning gardeners make way too often is not following the instructions on chemical weed killers.

Frequently turning the soil in your garden will continue to bring up dormant weeds. The best thing you can do is to limit tillage to new beds and minimize working the soil again and again. A low-till garden will be easier to manage year-after-year when it comes not only to weeds, but also to soil erosion. It's also possible to over-till your soil to the point of severe compaction, limiting air and water movement. If you can avoid frequent tilling, you can actually improve the quality of your soil and its overall health. Take the time to learn what it really means if your garden has lots of soil mites and focus on ways to encourage their presence to improve soil health (including limiting tillage). Similarly, understand that there are some beneficial weeds that don't even need to be removed.

If possible, the best way to avoid disturbing dormant weed seeds is to practice no-till or no-dig gardening. These methods help get the soil ready for planting without the disruption of a tiller. These great alternatives to tilling can transform how you garden. Lasagna gardening, which involves layering organic materials on top of each other for several months before the growing season, smothers weeds instead of digging them up. There are also ways to break up soil that won't result in soil compaction or weed growth, including broadforking. This tool has metal tines laid out on a metal bar. Users step on the bar to push the tines into the soil, naturally turning over the soil.