Weeds and the New Machine

I was complaining about weeds on Facebook yesterday and getting lots of sympathy. It doesn’t bother me to weed if I am able to be systematic about it. If you just go out and attack the weeds all the time, weeding can feel like a chore that never ends.

I garden primarily in raised beds. This year they’ve had more weeds than usual, and I’m not sure why, except that maybe I didn’t start clearing the weeds early enough. I am always weeding the raised beds, just randomly pulling out weeds as I walk by. This doesn’t bother me– the weeds give easily, except for grass, and I can use my little hand hula hoe to go between rows and do a bed very quickly. I do see how weeding limits succession planting. The carrots I sowed everywhere around the tomato plants have now made those beds a pain to weed. I have to be careful not to uproot the tiny carrot fronds! I’m thinking my old method of not sticking in baby lettuces or basil plants or tiny parsley and cilantro plants was a good one. I could just worry about the big plants and cultivate with a tool.

weeds close to the squash bed

The real issue for me has always been the weeds between the beds. I pull them by hand as much as possible. Today I filled one entire wheelbarrow (I’m calling it the weed-barrow these days), which is half as much as I pulled two weeks ago, at their peak. There is gravel there, and we’ve had good rains, so they pull up easily, mostly by the root.

hand-weeded row

My system has been to weed between the rows of raised beds and cultivate the squash bed one day a week (Wednesday) and then weed up and down the rows of onions, potatoes and beans one weekend day (Saturday). That has worked pretty well in terms of keeping the weeds under control and making me feel like I’ve accomplished a lot without waking up every morning thinking I have to get out there and weed the garden.

But just a few feet from the squash bed there is just this incredible mess of weeds. The same is true along the edge of the potato bed and over by the pile of yak compost. I cannot see my raspberry bushes.

The problem is that this area where my garden is has traditionally been brush. It has never been seeded in grass, and never really seeded in prairie either. It’s been cleared periodically, usually with the use of Roundup. There are two tools out here on the prairie: Roundup and chain saws. In fact, I can here Steve’s partner Jeff right now out cutting thistle heads in the prairie with a small chain saw.

I forgot all about the other tool that NORMAL people use to control weeds. It’s called a weed whacker! It’s an edger! People use it along the edges of their yard and around things like raised beds and trees! Even women can use them handily! (I say that to mock the very strict-seeming gender roles on the farm that prohibit women from using most if not all of the large equipment.) They make them with batteries, not gasoline-operated!

I used to have a weed whacker, actually, back 9 years ago when I had a house and a yard and mowed my own lawn with something that didn’t resemble a tractor!  So guess what I got myself for my birthday?

The glorious machine

I’m telling you, this thing is an answer to my prayers. The charge only lasted about a half hour, but in that time I made serious inroads on the jungle, even chopped off the heads of about two dozen thistles about to flower out. I was swinging this thing with abandon, and even lost a bean plant or two. Just look at the space by the squash patch now!

weeds whacked

I’ll still pull weeds by hand where it counts, at least in June. I can happily make the case now that Roundup need never come within 100 yards of my garden again.

As for the long row between the raised beds, I also did something to help that situation. Steve had brought back a large rubber tarp from a job that someone wanted him to dispose of. It was some kind of roofing liner. I cut it into four-foot swaths and laid it down my center row. It is so much stronger than landscape fabric, so hopefully I’ll get a few years’ use out of it. I’m also going to make better use of straw and grass clippings next year to keep the spring weeds down. I notice they aren’t as strong where the garlic is growing and extra straw covered the ground.

row cover