How much of the advice about weeding is actually true?

The other half of the reconciliation is that the low-intervention approaches are not tolerating weeds, they are occupying the ground with something chosen instead.

Mulch, ground cover, green manure, close spacing, interplanting — all of these are ways of denying weeds light and space without hoeing. Bare soil is what generates weeding work, because bare soil is an invitation and weed seed is present everywhere.

So the systems that claim you can stop weeding are usually correct about the outcome and describe a different amount of work, not none. Establishing a good mulch is more effort up front and much less through the season.

What I would actually do in a vegetable bed:

• Mulch generously between and around plants.
• Weed hard for the first few weeks after sowing or planting out.
• Cut rather than pull later in the season where you can — roots left in place hold soil and feed it.
• Never let anything set seed. This is the one rule with no exceptions, because a single plant going to seed creates several seasons of work.

Both are right about different things, and the variable that reconciles them is timing.

The competition claim is true — weeds do take water, nutrients and especially light. But crops are not equally vulnerable throughout their lives. There is a period, usually early, when competition does most of the damage, because a small seedling shaded by a fast weed never catches up. Once the crop has closed its canopy and is shading the ground itself, weeds underneath it cost very little.

So the practical rule is not "weed constantly" or "do not weed". It is: keep the bed clean while the crop is establishing, and relax afterwards.

That single distinction resolves most of the argument, and it also explains why experienced gardeners look casual about weeds in August and are ruthless in May.

Two things weeds genuinely do that get lost in the nutrients argument, one bad and one good.

Bad: they host pests and disease. Several common weeds are alternate hosts for aphids, viruses and fungal diseases that then move to your crop. That is a stronger argument for clearing certain weeds than competition ever was, and it is species-specific rather than general.

Good: they cover and feed the soil. Roots hold structure, prevent erosion and crusting, feed soil life, and pull nutrients up. Bare soil over winter loses more than a weedy patch does.

Which points at the same conclusion from another direction: the question is not weeds versus no weeds, it is what is covering the ground and whether it is competing with a crop right now.

One thing worth adding for anyone deciding how relaxed to be: which weeds matters enormously.

Annual weeds that pull out easily and have shallow roots are a minor nuisance and genuinely can be tolerated once the crop is up. Perennial weeds that spread by root — the ones where a fragment left behind becomes a new plant — are a completely different problem, and being relaxed about those is how a bed becomes unusable over three seasons.

Learning to recognise the handful of perennial troublemakers in your area is probably the single highest-value gardening skill there is, and it takes an afternoon.