Weeding. Ugh, right? Many of us view it with dread. Maybe we were tortured with it as a child when all we wanted to do was jump on our bikes and play with the other kids or go to the swimming pool. 

Perhaps we've never been taught how to weed correctly, even though it seems pretty straightforward. Or we've let it crop up (pun intended), and now the chore seems daunting, and we just know it will take hours. In the hot sun. With bugs. Again, ugh. 

The attack of the weeds might be the most common reason new gardeners give up. You can spot the sad, neglected, overgrown backyard garden plots driving around any town. That first year can be tough. What if I told you it doesn't have to be that way? 

What are weeds and why are there so many?

A weed is merely a plant growing where we don't want it to. It could be your basic garden-variety weed or a volunteer plant from last year's garden, like squashes, potatoes, or even (in my case) ten thousand tomatillo seedlings coming up as thick as thieves from a bumper crop of tomatillos I didn't get cleaned up last fall.

Weeds can be categorized as annual weeds—just like annual flowers or veg—and perennials. And how you deal with them matters greatly to your future frustration or relaxation in your garden. Annual weeds are easy to take care of. Chop up a perennial that spreads by rhizomes, and you'll create more weeds, not less. 

Annual weeds

Many weeds that plague our gardens are annuals, meaning they must grow, reproduce (make seeds), and die all in one year, just like a tomato or sweet corn plant. That's the good part: the annual weed you fought with this year won't live through the winter. The bad part is that they produce tons of seeds, which stay dormant but viable in the soil for years, waiting for the right conditions to germinate. We need to prevent them from going to seed.

Annual weeds are a large part of the reason newly made gardens often seem covered with a carpet of little green weed seedlings. When the soil is disturbed, all those dormant weed seeds find the perfect low-competition conditions to germinate and pop their heads up. Fortunately, they are easy to kill.

Crabgrass is a common garden weed that can really start to take over if left unweeded. It's an annual that will spread across the ground, rooting when its stems touch the soil. Pigweed and Lamb’s-quarters are also super common annual garden weeds.

Perennial weeds

As you'd imagine from the name, perennial weeds live on for more than a single growing season. Usually, their numbers in your garden will be fewer than annual weeds, but the persistent buggers can keep coming back over and over again. 

Dandelions are a well-known weed in the yard and the garden. They're perennials with a huge storage taproot. They'll resprout if you just break them off below the surface and don't pull them out by the root. 

White clover is another common perennial weed. In the yard, it provides food for pollinators and looks alright. In the garden, white clover forms dense mats of foliage that choke out younger plants and take over a path or bed. 

Perennial weeds must be dug up, getting all the roots you can find. Many grasses will spread by rhizomes under the soil, and they’ll just pop up again if you leave a piece behind. Don’t worry, the more you yank them out, eventually the fewer there will be. Fighting perennial weeds can take a couple of years.

Methods of Weeding

Weeding is more than just yanking at a stem and hoping it comes out. Unfortunately, many weeds are more resilient to being stepped on, broken off, dehydrated, or damaged than our fussy garden plants. Snap off everything above ground on your squash plant and you're pretty much out of luck. Break off a dandelion's leaves, stomp up and down on it, and it'll be back in a week. 

Effective weeding, therefore, means getting at the roots. But, a good old fashioned hand tool can make the job much easier, dare I say perhaps enjoyable. You may start to look forward to a few minutes with a hoe in hand, snickering as you ruthlessly uproot small weed seedlings. 

While garden tool manufacturers are constantly trying to devise a new, gimmicky tool to make weeding effortless and pocket your money, it's pretty hard to improve on the variations of hoe that have been in use practically forever.

A hoe's best use is for severing weeds off just below the surface, and as such, it works brilliantly on annual weeds. Cutting off weed stems, popping roots out of the soil, and general mayhem (from the weed's point of view) are what this tool does best. Lamb's-quarter and pigweed, in particular, are no match for a hoe-wielding gardener on a mission. The point of a hoe can be used to dig a bit, uprooting many perennial weeds without bending over. 

How to use a hand hoe

We've all seen a standard hoe with a long handle—usually at least five feet—and a metal rectangle mounted on the end. It's a basic tool, and it works well for many tasks. But sometimes, you've got to get down in there and have more control around your plants. That's where the shorter hand tool-size hoe comes in perfectly. 

Hand hoes are available in many different shapes, but all are designed to extend your reach by a foot or so while providing enough leverage to operate single-handed. Use them in between plants, especially younger ones. 

With a hand hoe, the idea is to sever the weed or disturb the soil surface and completely pull the weedling from the soil where you can snatch it and toss it in a pile for the compost bin. Short strokes work best. If you find yourself hacking and swinging it, you're working too hard with the wrong tool for the job. 

How to use a shuffle hoe

This tool has many names, including shuffle or scuffle hoe, stirrup hoe, oscillating hoe, and hula hoe. You can identify it by its odd shape—a metal loop in a rectangle. The idea is to use this hoe in a push-pull manner, running it back and forth over the soil surface. With slight down-pressure, it will run half an inch deep and sever weed stems and roots easily in loose soil. This tool is certain death for many annual weeds.

Most shuffle hoes come with a long handle, allowing you to work without bending over. It's a two-handed tool that you'll use with a motion more similar to a garden rake than a standard hoe. No chopping is involved. 

Shuffle hoes are fantastic for frequent weeding of large areas. When the soil is loose and the weeds are an inch or two tall, the shuffle hoe will make short work of the weekly weeding. However, it struggles with larger weeds or compact soils, where the pointed digging of a standard hoe is a better choice. Hit the weeds when they’re young and tender.

How to use a flame weeder

Fire in the garden could be a problem, so flame weeders are a tool to be careful with. They are best used on broadleaf weeds, say about 1–4 inches tall when still young. The flash of heat damages the cells in the leaves, and the plants wither and die. They work best on annual weeds. Perennials and grasses are more resistant. Don’t bother to burn the weeds to blackened cinders. Just a quick pass of the heat is enough. 

Flame weeders can be great for weeds between paver blocks, graveled areas, and other fire-safe weeding tasks. Be aware that even a bit of the heat from a flame weeder can be enough to wilt and damage or kill garden plants like tomatoes or melons. Flame weeders can save the day in large, open areas and you'll kill weeds without using chemical sprays.

Bonus Tips to Ease Weeding

It’s far better to keep the weeds out in the first place. Green-thumb gardeners know mulch is their best friend, not only for reducing weeds but also for conditioning the soil. Mulch denies those annual weed seeds the sunlight they need to transition from tiny seedlings to pesky weeds. 

Planting with tighter spacing is another good way to limit weeds by shading them from above. The spacing recommendations on a seed package are designed to maximize the size and vigor of the plant by reducing how much they compete with each other. I often plant a bit tighter, allowing the plants to grow together and "close the canopy." Once they grow larger, they'll shade the ground below, acting as their own mulch to block sunlight for weeds and reduce soil moisture loss.

And, lastly, but perhaps most effectively, is to kill off all grass and weeds before making a new garden bed. This will do wonders for your sanity in a first-year garden. I don't use herbicides, so I kill off sod and weeds by using anything that completely blocks light and leaving it on the surface for about six weeks. Ever left a board or something else in the yard and had a dead spot in your grass? It works wonders. 

Remember the entire idea of hoeing is to make the task faster and easier than pulling uncountable small weeds by hand. Large weeds or thickly matted clumps are best addressed with a big garden fork to get under and lift the root ball (then shake off all your valuable garden soil). 

Keeping up with the weeding with a good quality hoe is the best way to make this task quick and even fun rather than drudgery. A few minutes with a quality tool will keep your garden looking top-notch.