Hi I’m Erin and this is Our Wyoming Life
Pulling weeds is one of those things that every gardener has to do.
Now some gardeners don’t mind it and some hate it.
I personally hate it and always try to avoid it when possible.
Erin handles a majority of the weeding in the gardens.
Today Erin does the first weeding of the season.
In March.
This is definitely a first.
Usually the first weeding isn’t until June!
I guess that means that Erin doesn’t mind pulling weeds so much
Weeds are just a natural part of a garden.
If your dirt and water conditions are favorable enough to grow a vegetable that also means
that you’ll probably grow a weed too.
There’s lots of different ways to weed and lots of tools and gadgets out there to help
get the job done.
I’m pretty simply when it comes to weeding.
I pull them and I hoe them.
Here in the high tunnel you can see that our crops are growing very nicely.
The lettuce is starting to get big.
We did have about 15 heads die.
I’m not exactly sure what happened but I think that some of them died because I didn’t
water them enough.
The ground isn’t perfectly level and most of our crop loss is on the outside row that
is a little higher than the other two rows.
I think what was happening is that I was getting the dirt wet but it was also running off into
the other rows.
I am now being more diligent about making sure that top row gets enough water.
We’ve also had much warmer temps then I expected to have to deal with.
This heat may have actually caused some of our loss as well.
But we still have plenty of healthy looking lettuce.
Radishes are up and came in very nicely.
The leaves are starting to get decent size in some places so I’m hoping the radishes
underneath the soil are starting to form.
Spinach also came up abundantly and has developed it’s true leaves.
Some are even getting close to being harvestable!
All of the crops have weeds in them.
Not a lot but it’s time to take care of the weeds before things get out of control.
I’ll start down with the spinach.
This is just going to have to be hand weeded.
Since I didn’t plant in a row I can’t run a hoe through the bed.
I just start on one end and work my way through.
All of the weeds are super little still so they pull very easily and don’t disturb
the spinach roots.
Next I’ll do the radishes.
Since radishes are planted in rows I can use the hoe in the bed between the rows.
But first I will go ahead and hand weed right up next to the plant and in between the radishes.
I’m also going to do a little bit of thinning as I go.
These are definitely not horribly thick but there are a few spots that would benefit from
a light thinning.
The radishes need adequate space to grow beneath the soil.
If they are too thick it will take longer and some of them will not get very large.
Now that I’ve got the weeds out of the rows and the radishes are thinned I will run the
stirrup hoe between the rows.
The dirt is actually a little bit wetter then I would prefer for hoeing.
I watered yesterday morning.
Ideal conditions would probably be sometime tomorrow and I have other plans and can’t
carve out anytime to weed.
If the dirt was soaking wet I would not hoe.
Working the soil when it is very wet can actually be damaging to your soil structure.
This dirt is just a little but more damp than ideal so it’ll be ok this time.
Lettuce is next.
I’m going to run the hoe through the bed.
Of course avoiding hitting the lettuce.
And I will hand weed as necessary.
Don’t feel bad if you hoe a plant.
I can’t begin to tell you how many plants I’ve killed accidently with the hoe.
It’s of course not what I want to happen but death by hoe can occur at the hands of
even the most experienced gardener.
Everything is done and weeded.
It only took about ____ minutes.
The key with weeding is to do it when the weeds are small and definitely before they
go to seed.
The weeds are competing for the same key nutrients in the soil as your crops.
The more weeds and the bigger the weeds the less nutrients and water for your produce.
If your weeds get larger than your produce, the weeds will shade and stunt crop growth
even further.
So even if you hate weeding it’s best to do it often and stay on top of it.
I actually don’t mind weeding too much.
Mostly because no one bothers me when I weed.
No one wants to get talked into helping.
On the plus side, everything looks really pretty once you’re done.
Thanks for watching subscribing.
Make sure to like us on Facebook for exclusive content that you can’t find on YouTube.
Thanks for joining me in Our Wyoming Life.