She liked the idea of using raised beds, for moisture holding, better drainage.
So she tilled once, left it for 10 days, tilled again, then built up the beds by raking dirt into long mounds.
She also uses row covers, lets the plants come up into holes in the covers.
The covers are lightweight, protect from bugs, etc and help keep moisture in ( this is SW Ala, semi-tropical zone.
All she has to do is run the hoe or even a small machine between rows to get weeds out.
One could also put down something in teh walking part of the rows...tho cardboard does attract pill bus and slugs.
I used to pile up my pulled weeds into 8 inch high rows, the dead weeds smother out any that tried to grow, and the next year I could turn them under for a good tilth in the soil and move the planting beds onto them.
Planting into deep mulch has a lot of advantages.
Tackling weeds by hand is labor intensive of course, but gardening is such good exercise if you have the time.
Also, you could try white plastic sheets for parts of the garden you won't be using. Just lay the plastic down, secure with bricks or whatever,
during summer, it kills weeds, kills bad microbes.
= new reply since forum marked as read
