Every gardener, organic and otherwise, knows that dealing with weeds is a never-ending struggle. There are various ways to suppress them in your soil, from mulching to solarization to planting an undercover, like clover or winter rye, to choke them out (and incidentally to supply a green manure later on). You can also try pulling them up, burning them out with a blowtorch, pouring hot water on them, and spraying them with vinegar. All these methods work, at least temporarily; but most weeds are going to come back if you don’t get the taproot.
If you don’t want to deal with the same weed again and again, take the time to get the whole root, using something like a thin-bladed knife or trowel if you have to. It’ll be a lot easier if you do your weeding right after a soaking rain, when the ground’s softened (especially if you have a heavy clay soil like we do in Dallas). And while smaller weeds might be easier to pull than larger ones, the really small ones can be hard to get ahold of. You can make this process easier by using a strawberry huller to grab them with.
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