Maybe loads of gardeners use the following technique, but it was new to me.
I wanted to make a large bed for a load of mixed penstemon plants that I had grown form seed. I had about 60-70 young plants that germinated last winter and were grown on over the summer in small pots. The bed was about 15ft by 8ft. After planting out the plants I watered diligently as there was a drought.
As you can imagine, the local weed population regarded this as manna from heaven and, after three weeks, the weeds outnumbered the plants by about 20:1.
I tried hoeing and the like between the plants, but my stony soil made that very difficult and lifting the dead weedlets was a pain in the back.
So I started to think about another route. Although I am fairly organic in my gardening practices, I do use glyphosate when the task is too daunting, so I started to think how I might fry the weeds without frying the penstemons.
Yoghurt pots... so I covered the plants with yoghurt pots and sprayed the weeds.
Result - after about three weeks, an almost weed-free bed.
Photos show the problem before, the yoghurt pots in place and the results...
