How to get rid of Creeping Charlie and other tough spring weeds.

Good evening friends! Returning once again to ask if there are any natural or sustainable ways to remove tough spring weeds such as Creeping Charlie and others that could possibly choke out crops and other plants. What's that spring weed called with purple flowers and blanket everywhere on the ground? I've seen a lot of those at my community farm everywhere. Please reach me if you guys need me. Take care!

I just pull Creeping Charlie if it's being a particular nuisance somewhere. Mostly I ignore it. I'm glad to know it's edible if I'm ever starving, but it's not good enough to forage under normal circumstances. I treat sorrel the same but eat it more. Running grasses are my only really pesky weeds.

I have some Creeping Charlie that are invading my wild strawberry and native wildflower patch so far at my community farm. Is there any way to remove them from our native plant habitats other than pulling them out which take a lot of time and effort to do so? And what about spraying them with vinegar or any other homemade spray to fight off pesky weeds, small ones. Any ways to keep them from coming back year after year?

Spring pesto:

1. Having gathered up allium leaves, garlic mustard, plenty of young flowering tips from ground ivy (Creeping Charlie), mild greens such as cleavers or chickweed, and a little of anything else: perhaps mugwort, dandelion, or sochan;
2. Pound and grind pine nuts or sunflower seeds to a paste;
3. Chop and add greens gradually to the mortar and incorporate, adding olive oil and some salt, until it arrives at a good consistency.

I don’t do much else with ground ivy except pull them out when they threaten to take over, but used this way they are uniquely good.

Mighty good recipe! What about for dead nettle and other ground covering weeds that blanket the daylights outta our regular gardens? There have been some dead nettle from the mist of a warm winter into the spring agricultural season and impacting the acceleration of key commercial crops such as corn and other types of grain. Have weeds came in full force in the agricultural landscape this spring after the lukewarm winter which slow down major crop growth and production which will be a problem heading into the summer?

The purple-flowered weeds are likely henbits and dead nettles. They are biannual germinating last fall and will finish life cycle in early summer. Generally they won't compete with your main summer crops. They have shallow roots so it's easy to remove: pull, hoe or plow depending on your scale. I usually let them be until I need to plant, some ground cover is better than bare soil.

I've heard that dead nettle has been considered an edible of some sort. If anybody has any before, please let me know.

Creeping Charlie, AKA Creeping Jenny, Ground Ivy, Gill-Over-The-Ground, or whatever name you want to call it, is a great ground cover in the garden for several reasons. Bees love the flowers in the spring. It helps to cover bare spaces to prevent erosion. In pathways it's tough enough to walk on and smells nice. It makes a great permanent ground cover in raspberry and asparagus plantings. But.....it can be too much competition for small seedlings like onions and carrots. Fortunately it's shallow rooted and can be pulled or hoed easily enough, unlike white dutch clover which is often promoted for use as pathway ground cover (and even more aggressive at taking over beds). Plants that have been pulled can be used as mulch in beds where ground ivy is more welcome. I would never want to eliminate this wild weed from my garden as it's too helpful overall.

Henbit and dead nettle are kinda meh. But they work well with other greens. They taste better even by themselves if you only use the flowering tops. For henbit especially, useing something spicy is a very good thing. Mustard greens, hot peppers, or red pepper flakes, they all work.

As for creeping charlie in the garden, I planted some winter squash in a couple locations. Using the same seed. The ones in mulched soil grew well. The plants in charlie took a long time to get to 9 inch diameter, and stayed there. They never even tried to flower. Charlie also ate my garden sorrel, so I am shy of planting in it. Great replacement for lawns though! We now have much less space to mow every week. I can't miss a week of pulling it back from the garden edges though. Maybe charlie just really thrives in my climate.