Ok I know I am going to get done for this post but what the heck.
I am a person that likes to keep the garden looking untidy in the winter so the bugs and little critters have a place to snuggle down. I am a person that allows weeds to grow in between my veg so that the little insects and flying creatures can have a good time.
Geuss what!
Not one single pest has given any trouble this year. Nature is the best pesticide! And keeping it a little weedy is a good thing for the organic (Lazy :P JOKE!!) Gardener.
Need to do some seriouse weeding though loosing the leeks :(
And I know that weeds can sperad via seed to other plots and infect other plots and the most anoying ones are the annuals for sprouting and giving the hoe a job. But (never start a sentence with a but!) hey it is the annual weeds that the little hover flies and insects enjoy thus in turn they eat all the little aphids on your veg. Hover flies are very good for aphids and other little outdoor sap suckers.
To attract insects and hover flies and the tiny ones also plant yellow flowers inbetween your crops. Yellow is irrasistable to them.
The_Snail
I'm much the same; I dig out perennial weeds when I have an empty bed, but don't bother too much with annuals as long as they don't take over. It works well; my biggest pest problem this year has been eight rose sawfly caterpillars on one of my bushes. That won't kill anything, and it's a bigger problem than anything I got last year.
My annuals become perennials if I don't keep telling them Who's Boss.....and they're NOT my annual/perennials originally, so, tho I only (?)plottie in my garden (but hey! my veggies are as precious to me as yours are to you?) I'm with Jim. I companion plant, I leave nature to work it's balance, I'm really laid-back re: slugs, snails, pigeons, etc.etc.......BUT I'm NOT laid-back about the on-going nuisance caused in MY plot by my b. neighbours in theirs.
As for leaving stuff around for critters during the winter....yeah I do that, always done....
It was abit like my carrott and parsnip bed you couldn't see them through weeds but just lately I have started moving the weeds and they look like veg growing now haha
On the allotment I hate the weeds. They compete for the goodness and my precious precious moisture. I don't really have a pest problem, from my entire row of runners, one plant got blackfly, and when I looked, there were ladybirds all over it. No damage! That said, my two allotments are at the end of the plot with a hedgerow at the end. This lovely hedgerow is full of trees and flowers and alsorts, and they are left to run rampant. The weeds grow, but never to strong as they have to compete with the elder, brambles, dogroses, sloes, greengages oaktrees and so on. There are nettles for the flutterbyes and the birdies (an me) harvest the berries.
QuoteI am glad your plots aren't next to mine
Hmm, I think they're on the one next to me >:( >:(
If I only had annual weeds I'd be a happy bunny!!
As it is we've got to contend with docks, dandilions, bindweed, maretail, ragwort and probably two dozen unidentifiable (well, to me anyway) other things lurking on our patch.
Roll on next year when at least some of it should be clear, and we should be able to grow something except blackberries!
I asked my lottie neighbour (site rep!) what he was using to stake his peas this year. He pointed to an overgrown patch and said the weeds were his pea sticks! ;D
hee, hee - there's a thought for next year's peas ...
I'm with EJ, I hate weeds (and also untidy plants !), which is quite funny if you were to see my plot as the final third is still a jungle. Planning to dig it this autumn, but once its cleared I'm going to have a section for wild flowers
I'll agree to some extent - I'm a deliberately untidy gardener, but then I am careful to only allow certain weeds. I can recognise the real thugs and they get ripped out straight away, so I tend to go for a sort of carefully maintained messiness.
Course, if you're going for that sort of look, you need to make sure it looks intentional, otherwise you get told off by the site secretary. :D