Today we're going to talk about weeds and the strategies and tools I use to keep my fall/
winter garden
Relatively wheat free if this is your first time on our channel
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So our fall winter garden is in full swing things are looking pretty good
We had our first frost this morning actually
Not much of one, but it got down to 32 degrees a little bit of frost on the grass
Not much on these plants. Here we got
Cabbage heads starting to form here. We can see our cheers cabbage there
Looking nice and big should have some big old heads of cabbage there
We've got our onions and elephant garlic and some lettuce way back there
Then we've got our double rows of carrots and a few rows of beets in here
And carrots come up pretty good and they're starting to grow pretty fast. And so today we want to talk about
How we keep weeds out of here, especially with these carrots. Carrots
grow slower than most things so you have to be on top of it to make sure weeds just don't swallow up
Those little carrot plants. So we're going to talk about what tools we use
What strategies we use with what kind of frequency we get in here and
Weed to make sure our plants can thrive in this soil if you've been watching our channel for a while
You've probably heard me say this before but I always tell people that are struggling with their weed pressure
Weeding is a preventative practice. It's not a reactive one. So we want to
preventively
cultivate
Lightly just a first couple inches of the soil there
to
prevent weeds and kill
really tiny ones that we can't see we don't want to let our weeds get really big because they'll go to seed and
they're a lot harder to kill so we don't want to be reactive with our
Weeding we're we're like old goodness
We'll go outside to the garden one day and weeds have taken over the garden and now we need to do something we want to
be proactive with it and
Lightly cultivate on a regular basis. So the weeds never really become a problem
So if we stand back to look on this carrot plot, it looks pretty clean. But if we get in here
And look real close we can see we've got some tiny little weeds in there
That we need to get rid of and so that's the stage
When they're easiest to eliminate we can come in here and lightly cultivate and get rid of those guys
We don't want to let them get big because they'll go to seed
And cause a lot more problems, but at that stage when they're barely visible
To the naked eye is when they're easiest to take care of
So I've got three tools that I'm going to show you today that are my go-to tools
For weeding my fall and winter garden, now
These are not the only tools I use but these three I use with much more frequency this time of year
Than the other tools in my tool shed and I believe if you got these three tools
You can pretty much
take care of all the weeds in your garden and it doesn't take long just
ten or fifteen minutes a couple times a week to get out there and you can keep your weed pressure at a very very
low level.
So these three tools would include our single tine cultivator and then two
Of our wheel hoe attachments on the single wheel hoe.
Now let's go over each of these and I'll tell you why they're so useful this time of year
so this is our single tine cultivator and
It's a very simple tool but a very useful tool and we have this in a long handle and short handle version
It's just a little curved shank with a little tiny blade on the end of it there
And you can use that blade to chip away and break up soil, but I use it a little differently
I use this part of the shank right here
it kind of just skim along the soil surface and
Remove any of those thread like weeds
We plant a lot of crops around here, especially this time of year on double rows
With buried drip tape in the middle there
So like these beets you see these carrots, we do lettuce this way we do
onions, garlic, shallots this way a lot of crops we plant on double rows and
Because we've got that drip tape
buried
In the middle of that double row
we can't go through there with a traditional hoe or
Even the wheel hoe because we'd cut and tear up our drip tape. So this little single tine cultivator here
It's the perfect tool because we can just skim the surface here and easily work around these plants here and take care of
Any new weeds that might emerge between those double rows
And because this tool has this curved shank here. We can easily work around these plants here
And we don't have to worry about cutting the plants or damaging them we can get real close to them remove any weeds
And it just works beautifully for getting in here and doing some close
kind of meticulous
Weeding work and then once these plants get a little larger they'll actually shade out this area between here
but until then this single tine cultivator is a perfect tool for
scratching down the middle of those double rows and making sure our weed pressure is
Very minimal. And then the other two tools are
attachments for our single wheel hoe
now
this time of year
I find myself using the single wheel hoe a lot more
Than I do the double wheel hoe just because it has a smaller
Footprint, and we plant things pretty close around here and so once those plants get big
Like this cabbage right here
You don't have a lot of room to work there just one or two passes with the wheel hoe and that single wheel hoe
Because it just has one wheel has a smaller footprint
And you don't have to worry about running over your leaves as much as you would the double
So whereas I use the double a lot more in the spring and summer garden where I've got things spaced out a little further.
In the fall/winter garden I use the single wheel hoe a lot much because I like that smaller footprint and my
go-to wheel hoe attachments for the fall and winter
gardening season is
My oscillating hoe and then the cultivator teeth
Which comes standard with every wheel hoe now, I use the 12-inch oscillating hoe for the most part
but if you had some really narrow row spacings or
Plants, you know
Started growing up and got some dense foliage and your space between your rows was really tight
You could go to a eight inch or even a six inch
And you can also do some customization there with the teeth. I've got three teeth set up there, but I could also
If I needed a narrower
cultivation
System there I
could take one of those teeth off and just use two or I could take two of them off and just use one so
lots of different options there depending on how wide of a path
you want to cultivate so now let's talk about frequency and
Strategy and remember here. We're talking about light
Cultivation so just that first couple inches of soil just to uproot those tiny weeds
Flip them over so they don't grow any more and to get those really tiny thread like weeds
We can't even see to kill those as well. Now typically, I like to perform this light
Cultivation this time of year, at least once every two weeks. So twice a month
Now we don't have to do it as often this time of year because it's cold the weeds
Don't grow quite as fast in the spring in the summer
I'll try to do it at least once a week
But this time of year two times a month is usually pretty good if you have time to do it once a week
That's not going to hurt anything at all
In fact, that's probably even better but the days are shorter gets dark a little earlier
You know when you get home from work, you don't have quite as much time to play in the garden
So we try to do it at least once every two weeks.
So once every two weeks, I'll grab my single tine cultivator
And the first thing I want to do is get between those double rows that really narrow spacing
They're on top of the drip tape and I'll just you know drag that along there and if I've got some lettuce
I'll kind of work around the plants a little bit and just make sure I take care of all those little weeds in
the middle of that double row
so once we've got that really tight and meticulous weeding done with our single tine cultivator, then we grab our wheel hoe and
Cultivate the pathways and I showed you two wheel hoe attachments earlier
And the reason we use two different ones is because we rotate them or we alternate them
So the oscillating hoe does a really good job of slicing underneath the soil
They're cutting the roots from those weeds and then the cultivator teeth
Do a really good job of kind of flipping everything over flipping those weeds over so they'll die
They'll get exposed to the sunlight and they'll die
so what I'll do is
One week I'll use the oscillating hoe and the next time I come in and do cultivation. I'll use the cultivator teeth
So I just keep rotating them in and out and that seems to work really good
And takes care of all different kind of weeds that we might have some weeds the
Oscillating hoe works best some weeds the cultivator teeth are going to be a better motive attack
But if we alternate them we can make sure we take care of all those weeds in our garden.
So, there you go
Those are the three tools you need for the winter weed
Battle the single tine cultivator for that real close weeding and then your oscillating hoe
rotated with the cultivator teeth
Is gonna take care of your pathways. So the take-home message here is to be
proactive and not reactive
When it comes to weeds in your vegetable garden, just put it on your schedule
Once every couple of weeks this time of year once a week during the spring and summer get out there
lightly cultivate your garden and your weed pressure will be
Very minimal and your garden plants will thrive as a result. Look at it just like doing laundry
Although this is a lot more enjoyable than doing laundry
It's just one of those things you just need to do on a regular
Basis to keep your weed pressure down and all of these tools we use to do this are really really easy to use
for all ages male
or female that wheel hoe is pretty much effortless to push and that single time cultivator is really light and really
Easy to maneuver around those plants. I'll put some links below to all the tools
We talked about in today's video so you can go check those out if you enjoyed this video
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