# 5 Ways To Improve Your Gardening Skills and Knowledge



## Virgnia_Cooper (May 13, 2011)

If you only till once, how do you prepare your beds the next spring? How do you control the weeds. I tilled last year, and my garden area has weeds poping up all over it this year. I was goingto till this weekend. Please advise.


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## Tee (Mar 26, 2009)

Hi Virginia - there are a couple things you can do to keep from needing to till as much, or at all once the garden beds are constructed.

At the end of the season you can cover the garden beds with black plastic after adding amendments like compost. This will keep any weeds from resurfacing during winter months and early spring. Use a thick layer of hay or bark mulch in the pathways. Once it is time to start your garden the next spring, you can remove the plastic and store it for later use. Then add more compost and just work the soil loose with a garden fork. If that's too labor intensive, you can use a small tiller like a Mantis to loosen the soil in the garden beds.

You can also plant a thick cover crop in the rows/beds that is sown in fall and grows during winter. Crimson clover and common vetch are good cover crops to use. Sow these so it covers the entire garden bed/rows then in summer you can run over it with a lawn mower and work the vegetation into the garden soil using a garden fork or Mantis-type tiller.

This has a couple benefits. The clover is a legume that will fixate nitrogen into the soil all winter, and adding it to the soil in spring adds beneficial organic matter. If you plant it thick enough it will crowd out any weeds.


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## garden_boy (Mar 24, 2012)

hello veggie..

i love gardening alot..
in my place its very hot and almost the water is not bit salty too. so what would you suggest you to implant what type of vegetables in a 1000 sq place which is in my compound..thanks


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