Cover of Weedless Gardening

Weedless Gardening

Conventional wisdom says to garden from the bottom up, turning over the soil every spring until your back aches. Ironically, this does such a good job aerating that gardeners spend the rest of the season pulling weeds and replacing the suddenly energized (and easily used up) nutrients. Mother nature, on the other hand, gardens from the top down-layering undisturbed soil with leaves and other organic materials. In following this example and synthesizing the work of other perceptive gardeners, Lee Reich presents a compelling new system called weedless gardening.

Read more

The Weedless Gardenis good for plants and it's good for people. It protects the soil, contributes to plant health, reduces water needs, cuts down on a gardener's labor, encourages earthworms and, of course, mitigates weed problems by keeping the seeds dormant. Four basic tenets form the system's backbone-minimize soil disruption; protect soil surface; avoid soil compaction; use drip irrigation-and the way to get there is simple. For a new bed or established garden, layering is key, and the perfect material to use is also among the most common-newspaper. Add organic mulch and compost on top, and plants are growing in rich, self-generating humus. From vegetable gardening to flower gardens to planting trees, shrubs, and vines, The Weedless Gardenworks everywhere-allowing the gardener to work quite a bit less.

Audience
adult
Length
short · 176 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Weedless Gardening? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Weedless Gardening. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! Shares gardening, garden, nonfiction
  2. Saving Seeds: The Gardener's Guide to Growing and Saving Vegetable and Flower Seeds Shares gardening, garden, homesteading
  3. The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food Shares gardening, garden, homesteading
  4. Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden Shares gardening, garden, nonfiction

“People who read Weedless Gardening tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden
  2. The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage
  3. Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
  4. The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting Pruning Techniques
  2. The Tao of Vegetable Gardening: Cultivating Tomatoes, Greens, Peas, Beans, Squash, Joy, and Serenity
  3. Joy of Gardening
  4. The Essential Garden Design Workbook

“If it was the gardening that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Garden Primer
  2. Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Crops at Home
  3. Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens
  4. Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Rodale's Basic Organic Gardening: A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Healthy Garden
  2. Gardening Basics For Dummies
  3. Organic Gardening
  4. The Soul of Soil: A Soil-Building Guide for Master Gardeners and Farmers