There’s this slice of time a few days to a few weeks after the year’s first rain in Southern California when you can knock out thousands of weeds in minutes with a simple tool and little effort.
The first rain falls — and by rain, I mean at least a half-inch, which we have all just now received — and it triggers the germination of the seeds of certain weeds that are commonly called “winter annuals.” These are grasses like brome, and others like filaree and mallow.
Here is full-grown brome:
The weed seeds soak up the rain, start growing, and if you attack them as soon as they show their tiny green heads . . . it’s just too easy.
All you have to do is scrape their heads off. Kids can easily do this with a stirrup hoe or even a stick. You can also use a rake or spade or knife — anything that will scrape. You’re not digging, just disturbing the uppermost surface.
Contrast this with what would be needed to kill these same weeds in a month. The grasses would be tall and with extensive root systems. Mallow (also called cheeseweed) would have a tap root as tough as a rope. Removing these buggers would require different methods each, and it would require tons more work; it would tempt one to go for the herbicide option.
As a stitch in time saves nine, take a second tomorrow to have a close look for sprouts emerging from the dirt around the garden and quickly swipe them away.
My son picked up some of the weedlings he had hoed and asked if he should throw them in the trash. No need. They have no seeds, and they will shrivel in the sun over the next few days. Just leave them in place.
You might also like to read my posts:
Greg. Ordered your calendar, so useful.
So hey, met a guy who works at Armstrong’s and San Diego Botanic Gardens.
Told him about my cole crops and aphids. He’s a huge fan of worm castings.
So I dressed my broccolini and cauliflower with worm castings.
Amazing – no aphids, or few. Anyway just an FYI.
Hi Leslie,
Keep in touch through next year about how the calendar works for you each month.
So you think the worm castings might prevent aphids in some way, to some extent? I’d like to experiment with that in my late winter planting of cole crops. I’ll let you know how it goes.
As for my planting in late summer this year (which I’ve just started harvesting), I’ve got no aphids to speak of on broccoli and cauliflower, but a couple cabbage plants were hit hard.
I’ve got a bunch of these little weeds popping up after the heavy rain we got a couple of weeks ago in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, they are coming up through the landscape fabric that is under the gravel in our front yard. I can’t easily scrape these buggers with the gravel in place. Any ideas on how to deal with them without herbicide? (Love your website/blog, I’m new to it!)
Hi Kelly,
Thanks. In a situation like that, if the weeds are small but not tiny it’s easy to pull them up as long as the soil below is moist. (If they’re tiny, they’re hard to grab. If they’re big, they’re hard to pull up because of their big roots.)
If it seems like there are too many to pull by hand, then either try to break the task up into short sessions each day for a week (or something like that) or go for an herbicide. There are other options like flame weeding, etc.
You might enjoy reading my post: “How to outsmart garden weeds.”
Great idea, especially after the rain from hurricane Hilary has all kinds of interesting seedlings popping up. I’ll take a break from my war with horehound to make sure I’m scraping up the awful brome.