High Spring Anxiety....

I'm with Dori !! but I think the chipmunks are the worst around here
;0(
Gloria

Right now, my biggest problem is now that its all tilled, I have about a trillion baby weeds about an inch tall...how do I get rid of those?

That is hard. I you don't want to use chemicals you just have to hand pull. You'll do a lot of that for a few years till you get most of the weed seeds out of there. You could wait another couple weeks and till it again. We alwasys do a double till in the spring about a month apart. After planting we go out daily with scuffle hoes and hoe their nasty little heads off the weeds. If you are diligent, they will give up and go away. I found a good scuffle hoe on ebay. It's sharp and it has a long six foot handle that allows you to scuffle back and forth with little effort and it slices right through the weeds. We don't have to lift the hoe and do the hard chop motion.

Some people like to smother the weeds with weed cloth or mulch or grass clippings etc. I used to have an old Italian neighbor downstate who swore by old pieces of carpeting. He'd put it down in the paths of his garden. I prefer to leave the ground soil open and just hoe the weeds out. My garden is 30 x 50 and if my husband starts on one end and I start on the other end we can hoe each row pretty fast. We keep a picnic table down by the garden with an umbrella, radio and Bubba cups of something cold to drink. We take a lot of breaks. :) Hoeing is hard work but the scuffle hoe is much easier. If you keep up with the weeds when they are tiny it's no problem. If you wait till they get big it's a huge chore. Last year I got sidetracked doing another big project here on the farm and didn't get out to weed for about 10-12 days and that wild grass had took over. It took us 5 straight hours of two people hoeing to get it out of there. Whew! I won't ever do that again. It will be a daily thing for us now. After about a month or so most of the weeds will give up and if you tromp around the paths it will compact them and discourage them also.

You could also find some kids and offer to pay them .01 for each weed they pull. :) Or you could advertise for people who want to lose a few inches off their waist and charge them to come weed for you. :)

Loon,

you must type very quick! I swear I just posted that, LOL...thanks for the advice. Going to have to retill. Its been about 2 weeks. I thought about planting my entire garden w/ barley b/c its so good for a garden and it germinates so fast. Then when I am ready to put the trillion other plants in I would only remove the barley I need room to plant the other plants. I saw a thread on it on here. The barley feeds nitrogen into the ground and helps the plants and also blocks the weeds too. Then till it all in after the fall. Maybe next year...

i use preen!

Wouldnt that interfere w/ the seeds I want germinating?

yes

then it looks like the rototiller for me :(

I use Preen but only in my perennial bed where I'm not planting seeds. In the veggie garden I like to direct sow things like beans and cucumbers.

I had another thought. Some people like to use those narrow tillers. I think they're called Mantis ??? You can quickly till in between rows with them. I would think you might break up roots of plants. I plant close together. I try not to and it doesn't look like I do but when the plants grow theyr'e close. :) It's the biggest mistake I make each year.

I'll post a picture of what my hoe looks like. It's great and easy to use. I have bad shoulders so the soft back and forth slicing motion is so much easier for me to do.

Ms. Loon,

My biggest issue is my gardens size and my finacial ability to "tend it" inexpensively. If we didnt need to have heat or water in the house I would love a mantis tiller. I believe my father has an attachment for his gas powered weed wacker that is a tiller. But its a big ole plot of land. Maybe will have to consider downsizing...nah...

I will have to do some research on the hoe. Looks like a great thing to have!

I grow garlic almost commercially. The saving grace for garlic is heavy mulch. I use around 6" of straw. It is
perfect!!!

One year, when i had time, I planted a veg garden and put a ton of straw around each plant. It worked.
I had incredible yields and zero weeds.

You could also lay down straw, and then plant a plant in each hole. I know, this weeding business is nuts!

If you kept up the straw, and not till it in, but added to it every year, your garden would become incredible.
The less you futz with the soil, but add to the top fresh compost, or if the straw decomposes, then the
tilth underneath changes with the action of soil microbes, earthworms and freeze thaw.

I will make a veg garden this year and do the straw layering and keep it over the winter and then again
next year. My body is not made for weeding anymore. The ground is at least 5 feet away from me.
Sheri

Sheri, where do you get your straw? I am in need of some but every local retailer wants at least 5 dollars a bale...

PB
There's got to be some farmers out there in Jenison or Hudsonville where you can buy straw more reasonable. Ask people who have horses. Somebody will know.

I've used the heavy mulching system for years and it works great.
Don't pull the straw (or hay) apart.
Divide up the flakes and lay them on the ground in chunks.
The thicker, the better.

i get it free here-they farmer gives me the busted up stuff
I dont use it anymore-to many weed seeds for me!!!

I just bought a hoe like Loons I LOVE IT it took a few mintes to get used to it but it works great wish I would have gotten one years ago!!
Gloria

I've never had problems with weeds from using hay or straw mulch if you do it the way I described.

i have this hoe and it works frontwards and backwards-its the best Hoe i have!!!
i borrowed the pic from a site!!

That's a scuffly hoe. It works on the same back and forth principle as the one I have except the one I have has razor sharp edges on it. I have the one like you have too but I like this new one much better. I like it so much I bought three of them in different size heads. One is a tiny triangle and is great to hoe in between plants with.

We buy straw for our chickens at a grainery in Turner for $2.25 a bale. It's the cheapest place I've found so far. Straw does have a lot of weed seeds in it. I guess if you don't till it in and it doesn't touch the soil they may not germinate. I don't know. I do put a pine mulch down thick in my perennial flower bed and just add to it each year and it works great. With the vegetable bed though we pull the plants out each year and put down about a foot thick layer of leaves in the fall. I like to till those in the spring to get the decomposing leaves down six inches or better into the dirt. One year I put straw down around the asparagus plants. Huge mistake. Weeds were coming up through it and I couldn't hoe them out with the straw in there. It's stiff straw. I woud up raking out all the straw so I could hoe. Now in the fall I cut down the asparagus fronds and put a lot of chopped up leaves over the bed. Early int he spring I hoe anything out right away. Tha'ts the secret. Get to it early and often and don't let it get away from you.

Time to go cut more asparagus. Yum!

Brenda i have a small hand one like yours too LOL
my sis got me a chinese hand hoe that is really nice -i havent found a pic of it yet
it digs deep.
My favorite is my electric hoe-a mantis tiller-I just got my 4th one for mothers day
Back to a 2cycle-hope this one can work as hard as me. lol

I had bought a hand one from someone here on Daves. I hate the thing. You actually have to bend over to use it. **grin** The one I bought has a long six foot handle on it so you can stand upright to use it. Much easier on the old back.

I've never tried a Mantis tiller. They look really good. If you're on your 4th one does that mean they don't last very long or what?

The "scruffy" hoe is what I saw on telly about 20 years ago "The Hula Hoe", had to have it.

It works great. Back and forth!.

Straw is easy to find. Call any farmer, stop by an old wheat field where they planted wheat
the year before and get straw.

We buy straw bales, huge 50lb for $2.00. It goes far.

The seeds don't germinate in my straw. I think its too dried out and old or something.
I think its amazing how veg can grow up through the straw.

My garlics love the straw. I love the straw.
Especially straw from the wintered chicken house with all their poops in it. OMG.
Now, that is Good Straw. LOL.

Has anyone ever heard of an Adz (sp?). I thought it was a short handled curved
axe like thing you use to chop up hardpan while you are sitting or weeding or
something.

Sheri

Mattock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A mattock

A mattock is a hand tool similar to a pickaxe. It is distinguished by the head, which makes it particularly suitable for digging or breaking up moderately hard ground. A mattock has a broad chisel-like blade perpendicular to the handle.[1] This broad-bladed end is effectively an adze that could be used as a hoe as well. The reverse may have a pointed end, in which case the tool is called a pick mattock, or instead have an axe-like splitting end, then it is a cutter mattock. A combination axe and mattock used for fighting forest fires is a pulaski. In some regions of the southern USA, the mattock is called a "grub hoe" or "grub axe".

Mattock heads range from 1.5 to 3.5 kg (3 to 7 pounds) in weight, and are normally mounted on a 90 to 120 cm (3 to 4 foot) shaft. The shaft is often heavier than the head, sometimes possessing twice the mass and density of a baseball bat.

Mattocks are still frequently used for path work in hill areas such as the Scottish Highlands, and are used extensively in archaeological excavation.
A mattock in use to dig out a burrowing pit.

During the Middle Ages of Europe, the mattock served as an improvised pole weapon for the poorer classes.
[edit] References

1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 2000