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Old 10-05-2020, 04:26 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
songbird[_2_] songbird[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jun 2010
Posts: 3,072
Default I need weed advice

T wrote:
On 2020-05-09 13:22, songbird wrote:
stirrup hoe


Thank you!

This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEyFVnRy3sA


yes, they're well worth the investment IMO.

for harder soils and ones with more rocks they
don't work as well, but for sandy soils or clay
you can skim right across the surface.



And use a rack the clean up the stalks with all the
seeds on them? (They weeds all have seeds starting
on them.)


once you have seeds for grasses you don't want to
use those for anything other than burying pretty
deeply. gotta get it out before it starts
setting seeds. if the seeds are not viable and
won't ripen once you cut the stalks that can be
workable for some weeds/seeds, but i've never
tested it out as to what stage that happens so i
can't say.

if you have birds around that will eat them or
other creatures then it isn't so bad, but basically
i don't often let anything go to seed in the gardens
if i can help it at all. it just makes life so much
more difficult.

so the above hoe lets you get out and scrape the
plants off so they will dry out in the sun once a
week or as often as you can and get that done before
they set seeds. you will have to do this several
times for some plants before they will stop having
enough energy to come up. every weed is different.

the area you have already cleared if you can keep
hitting it with a scraper of some kind those grasses
won't have a chance. just have to keep at it and
that is the hard part for most people as they can't
be as consistent as they would need to be to get rid
of a weed.

this garden i needed to do a lot of prep work on
to get it back into shape:

http://www.anthive.com/img/n_garden/...eeding_thm.jpg

this is what it looks like now:

http://www.anthive.com/img/n_garden/...n_RTNW_thm.jpg

except it is surrounded by blooming daffodils now that
i had to move from inside to around the edges. i can
stirrup hoe that entire garden in a few hours. close
weeding along the edges is a lot more time because i
have creeping thyme growing along there now that i enjoy
sitting there and weeding. that takes a bit longer
depending upon how much grass seeds get scattered from
the lawn mower along the edge. if i could get rid of
the grassy area along the edge i could save myself quite
a bit of extra work. grasses always like to spread into
the neighboring gardens and cost me a lot of time weeding.

the creeping thyme looks like:

http://www.anthive.com/img/n_garden/..._Thyme_thm.jpg

because those two edges are not along grassy areas there
are not that many weeds in there as compared to along the
further edge where it runs along the grass. i only have to
spend a few hours here or there twice a month to keep those
edges fairly cleared of weeds. it does take good vision
and close-up work as i'm tracking down very fine grass plants
as they are trying to get sprouted and growing. as i keep
at it there are fewer and fewer i have to find but always a
few as the birds and other animals can move some seeds
around.

still i would much rather be weeding than mowing so...
it is all good. i enjoy the work.


songbird