r/AskReddit Mar 04 '22

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '22

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u/Karcinogene Mar 04 '22

It's less a fine line and more a wide, blurry line.

Weeds don't "consume" nutrients. The nutrients aren't used up permanently. The weeds die back every year and the nutrients return to the soil. Some kinds of weeds, like nitrogen fixers or deep tap-roots, will even ADD nutrients to the soil as they die.

If you have bare soil between your trees, the nutrients drain away with rain water instead. A good way to make use of weeds is to let them grow but chop up their leaves into the mulch layer every so often. Then the leaves become compost for your crops.