WEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 March 1940, Page 8

WEEDS

BE SURE AND ERADICATE THEM. It is a difficult matter to keep the garden free of weeds at this season. We sometimes find, in an otherwise wellkept garden, a patch of weeds allowed to flower and scatter myriads of seeds far and near, and this means crops of weeds for years to come. A prolific spot for the distribution of weeds seeds is the rubbish heap. One thistle plant may distribute its thousands of feathery seeds on land scores of yards away, and so may the Cape weed, dandelion and other free seeding plants. Chickweed, “fat hen” and some of the grasses flower and seed when the plants are quite small, and may be lost sight of amongst the stronger growth kinds. Weeds not only take food and moisture from the rightful tenants of the soil, but they serve as harbour for slugs and other garden pests. They do little harm if they are dug in before they are allowed to seed; in fact, they do some good, for they act as green manure, and tend to keep the soil open. The unthinking gardener sometimes allows the weeds to remain on the ground as a shade to it, and to retard evaporation from otherwise bare spots, forgetting that the pores of the leaves exhale more moisture than the soil. It is better to dispose of the weeds just as they are peeping through the soil.