Weeds Have Their Place In My Garden

When I first started gardening the biggest thing I was told by the experts was, "Keep up with the weeding and don't let them in, you'll never get rid of them." So, I kept up, most of the time, with the weeding. 

But I soon discovered something. Insects love weeds. Bees of all types were in the weeds. There were more insects around the fringe of my "perfect" garden than there were in the "weed free" areas. The light bulb came on over my head and this is what I do to promote a balanced garden that requires no insecticide spraying. 

I keep 2- 4' X 6' sunny raised bed sections of the garden as designated "weed" areas. As I do my weeding in the garden, I put the pulled weeds in the weed "OK" area. You don't have to get fancy. Sometimes I plant them and sometimes I just toss the weed into the area. I don't have to worry, the weeds will show up.

Dandelions, from the small front lawn,  are put in the weed zones and left alone. I use dandelion leaves in my salad. 

I get a lot of unknown flowers and they certainly attract pollinators. I read somewhere that these areas are great to produce beneficial insects. 

I even put a couple of homemade toad houses, stones, small containers of water, and small logs in the areas and sometimes toads show up. 

I treat these areas as equally important to other parts of the garden. They attract the first and last bees. 

 So as you can see, I like weeds as long as they know their place!