Depending on where you live, you may find that the mild and wet weather has made it very easy to get rid of some of the more persistent weeds. So, it’s a good weekend to get out there and pull up the likes of docks, dandelions, bindweed and brambles.
Use a small handfork to loosen the weeds at the roots, and try to pull them up with the roots intact to prevent them from growing back. You’ll find that next season you have far fewer weeds to contend with as a result. Don’t forget to pull the weeds out of pots as well – they will take up valuable resources from your plants that are growing, like water, nutrients and space for roots, as well as competing for light.
For empty beds, we’d recommend weeding them now and then covering with polythene for the winter. If you are growing veggies over the winter, then weeding in between rows now and then adding a mulch of organic compost or similar will really suppress weed growth for next season.
If you have a compost pile on the go, you can add most of the weedy foliage to the pile without worrying too much about them re-growing. The roots are best left out of the compost pile unless you really know what you are doing. We’d recommend having a read of Charles Dowding’s composting blog post, as this makes a bit more sense of it all.