which plants can handle the weeds, and which ones just can’t

I have a very large garden. Roughly 300 feet long. I also have 4 very small children. So when I say I know all about not having enough time to weed the whole garden, I mean it! Every single day I am faced with the decision of which plants to weed around, and which plants to close my eyes and try not to look at for another week. It’s painful, but it’s either that or send my kids to daycare three days a week just so I can weed all day.

So if you find yourself faced with a decision similar to mine, let me save you some dead plants and tell you what I have learned. Over the past few years, I have discovered that certain plants handle the weeds significantly better than others. I have also learned that a few plants are huge pansies and won’t tolerate a weed within ten feet of them or else they put their little feet in the air and give up.

Here are the ones that have survived the great weed battle in my farmhouse garden:

• Raspberries– these guys are champs! It’s almost hard to kill them seriously. As long as I keep water on them, mine have survived four feet tall weeds before, NO EXAGGERATION …. unfortunately.
• Pumpkins– these plants are special because they will literally CLIMB OUT of the weed patch. They grow just as fast as most weeds, so they simply latch on and hang on tight while the weed does all the work. Smart!
• Strawberries– my patch produces it’s crop early summertime. So the rest of the summer, I spend taking care of the other plants and forget about my strawberries since they already gave me what I want. Mean I know, but it happens. They have done incredibly well in my garden, despite being forgotten. But they do require a lot of water FYI.
• Zucchini Squash- I think these do so well because they have enormous and powerful leaves. They pretty much shade out the weeds that are closest to them so the nearest weeds are forced to grow a foot or two away from the plant itself. Let’s all give a hand to zucchini for taking care of itself!

Now on the other end, here are the plants that certainly don’t take care of themselves. These ones need their hair combed and their teeth brushed too or they won’t give you a darn thing in return.

• Onions– these deserve the #1 spot on my list. If my onions don’t have every weed plucked from their entire grow box, they don’t grow an inch. They just hide out underneath and pout. Okay maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but they really hate weeds.
• Carrots– another small plant that hates unwanted house guests. Carrots will still grow if they have a few weeds near them but they will be all weird and distorted when you pick them because they grow in the opposite direction of anything other then perfect crumbly soil.
• Melons– my plants grow okay when they are surrounded by weeds, but they produce tiny, sick looking, and bitter tasting melons. Not exactly what we want when we spend all summer watering them.

All the other plants I grow in my garden fall somewhere in the middle. Obviously every plant will do BETTER with no weeds, but some handle it much more maturely than others. So next time you’re out weeding, go take care of the onions, carrots, and melons first. Hopefully you have time to get to the other ones too, but if not, take comfort in knowing you took care of the wimpy ones first.

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Does anyone else have experience with weeds? Or is my garden the only one that suffers from extreme neglect every once in awhile? Please share your expertise with us!

~Farmer’s Wife