My father used to say, “One year of seeds, son, and you
can count on seven years
of weeds.”

What he was saying was that the one year that you let the
weeds mature and produce
seeds will return and haunt you for the next seven years. Like
most things he told me,
this has surely come to pass.

Weeds are your garden’s enemies. They rob precious water and
nutrients from your garden
plants. They harbor insects and diseases. They compete for
light.
And most of all, they
cause you untold work trying to keep them under control.

Actually, the best control is the easiest: don’t let them
grow. Garden weeds are going
to seed now, so now is the time to remove them from your garden.
Compost them or
otherwise, but just make sure that they don’t fall and remain in
the garden area.

Other Weed
Controls

Three other controls of weed seed that might be helpful:

• Weed seed can come in when you incorporate manure in the
  garden. Many weeds’ seeds pass
  through the animal without being digested and will be in the
  manure. Composting the manure
  will reduce the problem.
• Mulch materials can harbor weed seed, too. Use only coastal
  Bermuda hay, which doesn’t
  produce seed. It’s grown from cuttings and doesn’t have seed
  heads. Many of the other
  types of hay will have weed seeds, including wheat
  straw.
• Many of the books you read say to dig the garden deep.
  Well, this is good in one way –
  it buries the weed seed deep. But at the same time, deep
  digging brings up weed seeds that
  haven’t seen the light for many years. Many can live 10 to 12
  years and then germinate
  when conditions are right.

Remove Weeds
Now

The best thing, though, is to remove the weeds now, before
they produce mature seeds.
Pull, hoe, chop, rototill, mulch, bury, burn, eat (yes, some
people actually like to eat purslane)
or destroy them in some manner.

A wise man once said, “Friends come and go, but enemies
accumulate.” For the
gardener, the enemies are the weeds. For that perfect garden next
year, get the weeds out
this year.