By hook or by crook

With so many jobs we cannot do, such as mow, sow and plant out, it's the weeding of paths and open areas that reflect worse on any garden.

With such poor summer weather, it's only the weeds that have benefited - principally because they are usually natives to the UK - so unlike our delicate and fussy imports they do very well.

Weeds are simply plants growing in the wrong place and their seeds remain viable for many, many, years, so the saying one year's seed is seven years' weed' is optimistic at best.

It's not only the appearance of weeds that alter the garden - weeds compete for water, light and space, and will soon overcome any new sowing in the vegetative garden.

They can also be alternate hosts for pest and disease, for example chickweed supports whitefly and red spider mite, and groundsel carries rust.

It's hardly surprising then that for centuries the gardener's shed has supported the widest variety of tools for weeding more than for any other gardening activity.

Centuries ago weeding might have been done with a hoe, hook or even a forked stick.

The hook or bill-hook was such a ubiquitous tool that it could be used almost anywhere, from pruning, harvesting, hedge making to ground clearance. It is no wonder then that the term by hook or by crook' was the legal term for working the manor's woods and fields.

The best tools for weeding remain the spade and the hoe. The spade is the' gardener's tool, so much so it has a patron saint. St Fiacre's day is the first day of September.

In the 600s Fiacre left his native Ireland for France, where he was employed by Bishop Faro of Meaux.

The bishop gave him some land but imposed a condition that it could be no bigger than could be dug by one man, in one day.

Fiacre set about work and it is said dug nine acres - so much that a hermitage was erected and his reputation as a gardener grew and grew.

He was later given a sainthood as a gardener, but also with the ability to cure haemorrhoids!

Which brings me back to weeds.

September, like May, is the month of weeds, and it is in these months above any that diligent weeding will pay off for the following seasons.

It is this month that many perennial and biennial weeds are taking nutrients down to their roots for next year.

Now is the time to remove them - best done with a spade - but where it's difficult to dig, like around or in roots, it is best to spray with glyphosphate.

I doubt any of us could dig as well as Fiacre, but now is the time to turn in weeds on open ground and home them off with a razor sharp hoe around plants.

If things are just too bad, the careful and judicious use of herbicides should always be considered.

It is often said that weeding is like the horticultural equivalent of ironing, but the writer Robert Louis Stevenson had it right when he said if he starts the day weeding he never goes back to his paperwork.

Happy weeding!