Weedless Gardening?

Tonight we went out to our truly annoying raised bed and the kids and I did a lot of weeding. This made me think again of the concept of "weedless gardening" that I really hope we can embrace in future years...

The basic principle can be found here; I love that the Goode Olde "Mother Earth News" that my crunchy parents used to read all the time is now a website, still going strong.

www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2007-06-01/Weedless-Gardening.aspx

It's a good article, and the principles make sense.  The basic idea seems to be that you use a raised bed and just keep throwing organic matter on top of it all summer, as mulch (including grass clippings) then all fall and even all winter, and let it happily compost itself as it goes, so you don't really even need to fertilize your garden. 

We're going to need to do something about our landscaping next year; the raised bed is falling apart and the soil back there is just awful.  If we can get some basic landscaping done even in the fall, and then can throw dead leaves into it over autumn and just keep on feeding and feeding it, we may get some actual life in our veggies.  Admittedly, the weather has pretty much stunk this year, but our backyard plants are way too spindly and wimpy for mid-June--contrasted with the front yard herbs and flowers that are going gangbusters. It's that crazy silty soil; we added a ton of amendment to it, and this year at least tilling wasn't even an option, we pretty much had to--but even still it's not doing so well.

At least the peas are looking hopeful.  And the basil I started from seed is actually big enough now that it resembles basil...I'll have pesto this year!!

peace,
J