Tired of friends/neighbors who are newbies to gardening telling you How to garden?

[meadow]

Good point, @Zeedman. I wasn't thinking in those terms, but of course you are correct. We've done similar to get rid of potential seeds when it is a race against time.

 

[flowerbug]

Unless you're weeding quackgrass!

any deep rooted grass is going to take more than a quick one-time attack to get it gone. i prefer to smother them if they're that bad.

I love stirrup hoes. Of course I have to go through and remove any bits of quackgrass first, but cutting them off at the surface is my preferred method if there are more than a few weeds.

they work quickly for me on my biggest gardens. the fewer obstacles and edges to work around the easier it is.

the most minimal effort for me is that the stirrup hoe will skim across the surface instead of digging into the soil so it will slice off weeds and leave the soil either completely undisturbed (because we have a fair amount of clay and it's too hard to hoe anyways and i wouldn't want to do that much work if i didn't have to) or if i am getting down more into the soil (because the garden is actually better soil than others) then it's usually not too hard to do.

i have a lot of garden spaces here to take care of. if i have to spend a lot of effort on weeding i'd be sunk. i can skim a pretty big area in an hour or two.

as it is i often spend a lot more time on projects during the better weather seasons than i do weeding.

Just got a new hoe that works on the same principle but is not a stirrup hoe. Haven't tried it yet but DH loves it (he hates stirrup hoes) and I've not even had a chance to test it out. Probably the best purchase ever! It's called a "Push-Pull Hoe."

noted and investigated.

i'm always interested in better ways of doing things. with this many square feet to keep after i'd be crazy not to want things to go easier.

i watched videos of people using those hoes. they're working a lot harder than i would for many of the tasks observed (i'm not fully abled i have to work as smart as i can). by the time weeds and grasses are that thick then i've missed the job entirely by too much. i would smother the areas if i could instead. cutting and putting down cardboard and weighting it down is a lot faster than busting sod. IMO busting sod isn't a hoe job.

 

[flowerbug]

Bingo! I'm surprised anyone would think mowing would be effective weed control. Well, unless they are only concerned about controlling the height? I suppose there are different forms of weed control.

if you are mowing before seeds are set then you've avoided a lot of future weeds.

once weeds have set seeds and dropped them you can do a lot to make that situation better but most people don't think of it or want to do the work involved. that's ok.

 

[flowerbug]

...
That included mowing over the gherkin patch, since it was impossible to weed between the vines at that point. The gherkin vines had rooted, clung tightly to the ground, and were mostly undamaged.

if anyone asked you could have said you were pre-slciing the pickles.

 

[meadow]

i watched videos of people using those hoes. they're working a lot harder than i would for many of the tasks observed (i'm not fully abled i have to work as smart as i can). by the time weeds and grasses are that thick then i've missed the job entirely by too much. i would smother the areas if i could instead. cutting and putting down cardboard and weighting it down is a lot faster than busting sod. IMO busting sod isn't a hoe job.

Interesting. Surprisingly, I didn't think to look for videos before purchasing. I agree, they've waited much too long.

if you are mowing before seeds are set then you've avoided a lot of future weeds.

True!! If I'm short on time, I've been known to yank maturing heads off of weeds just with that in mind. A mower isn't practical for some areas of our garden.

 

[meadow]

hmmm. It looks like there are a couple of hoes that go by the "Push Pull" name. Ours is Amish made (not made by DeWitt).

 

[flowerbug]

...
True!! If I'm short on time, I've been known to yank maturing heads off of weeds just with that in mind. A mower isn't practical for some areas of our garden.

i will sit and pull seed stalks off plantains and leave the plant alone. i like them. the seeds i throw in the weed pile and the birdies pick through to find them. when i get more time i go back and uproot the plantains and pull the leaves off and leave those for mulch and worm food and then i have just a bit of roots to dry out that gets tossed on the weed pile if it is too close to raining. otherwise i'll leave them uprooted with the roots facing up for the sun to dry out. the worms love any bit of organic material i can leave behind here in this clay. a lot of my garden fertility comes from this sort of activity - i try not to throw out anything organic if i can help it.

 

[digitS']

Uh oh. Well, I wasn't picking on you @Zeedman .

I have very limited experience with clay soil or growing season rain.

My experience with a rainy country was on the California coast. Still, it was a Mediterranean climate and by definition had little rain during the summer months. Have a little experience a few miles south of this glacial valley what is loess soil: I once complained to someone about me growing things there. He was from one of the area's very productive farms. I said I could have done better making bricks.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

hmmm. It looks like there are a couple of hoes that go by the "Push Pull" name. Ours is Amish made (not made by DeWitt).

picture would help because i'm seeing several different kinds too. i mean a stirrup hoe can also be called a push pull hoe so ...

 

[meadow]