5 natural techniques to weed your garden

When the weather is nice, the weeds abound! Five ideas for small and large scale to avoid chemical weed killers.

1/ Elbow grease

The most basic solution! Plants are hand-pulled or using specific hand tools (knife weedier, hoe...). Humid ground – through rains for instance – makes extraction easier and allows for the removal of all roots.

2/ White vinegar

Another cheap and easy technique is to spray white vinegar on the leaves of young undesirables ideally on a sunny day. Be careful, although the vinegar won’t soak the soil that way, better avoid using too much of it or too often so as to not affect the balance of underground life.

3/ Carbohydrates’ cooking water

In some cases, potatoes, pasta or rice’s salted cooking water poured still boiling on weeds can help maintain the garden. A trick to keep in mind especially for the gaps between two tiles or gravelled driveways.

4/ Mechanical weeding

When surfaces are large – even more on agricultural crops! –, mechanical weeding takes over. Made with different tools (diner, rotary hoe, chain harrow...), it allows to reduce the environment’s impact and to avoid water pollution. Bonduelle encourages its partners to adopt alternative agro-ecological techniques to take care of soils and resources which currently comprises 44% of crops’ surface.

5/ Solarisation

For the pros or gardening lovers, you can simply use the sun’s heat by laying a black tarpaulin or a dark straw mulching canvas on the land to weed. Heated plants end up breaking down in place. At the same time, elevated temperature destroys certain disease agents. This technique is usually use before cultivation.