Sunday morning might seem like the perfect time for a spot of weeding. You might have the how to weed a garden guide in hand but there is one thing you need to bear in mind before starting – the weather and time of day.
According to garden expert Kate Turner, the perfect time to weed your garden with ease is on a sunny day in the afternoon. Weeding is a chore nobody enjoys, however speaking at the Miracle-Gro Plant Clinic gardening presenter and guru Kate Turner explained that one of the biggest weeding mistakes people make is weeding when the soil is wet.
'A classic mistake people make is hoeing their weeds, so they just kind of pull them up, when the soil is still wet. They just leave them and basically, weeds grow straight back from that little bit you've broken off,' she explains.
'If you're going to hoe your weeds you want to do it on a really dry day because then you can just leave them and the sun will kill them,' she adds. 'So that is a really simple tip, so don't weed on a rainy day because any little bit that you leave is going regrow, so hoe on a nice dry calm day.'
However, it isn't as simple as just weeding on a warm day, you need to ensure that the soil has had time to dry out. ' It might be lovely hot and sunny but actually, if you started doing it in the morning there is still quite a heavy dew,' Kate says.
Instead, she recommends weeding in the afternoon when the soil has had time to dry off on a hot sunny day. That way after hoeing you can just leave the weeds to die in the hot sun, without worrying about them coming back.
This is one of many weed control tips and tricks you can try, unfortunately, this only works for annual weeds, shallow-rooted weeds that you can hoe by cutting the top off. Kate explains that getting rid of perennial weeds is a little trickier and it doesn't matter what day or time you try to get rid of them.
'Bindweed, nettles, ground elder – those are the big ones, they won't be out too much now so you have to dig them out,' she says. 'You must not leave leaves behind. Even just a teeny tiny bit will reroot and you'll produce another plant.'
'So don't hoe the big weeds you've got to pull them out,' she warns, she also suggests trying the best weed killer but this is best done in autumn. Alternatively, you might want to try a natural solution with our how to make natural weed killer guide.
Kate has years of experience in gardening. She has worked on ITV’s Love Your Garden, BBC’s Garden Rescue and as a horticultural tutor at The Therapy Garden to name a few of her roles. Heed her advice and save yourself time by weeding on a sunny afternoon.
