Quick, Get the Hoe!

Go out to your flowerbeds and take a look…did you see them? Little baby spring weeds, that’s what they are, everywhere! They are about ½-1″ tall and look oh so healthy.

You see spring weeds follow the same growing schedule as our fall-planted spring blooming flower seeds, except we didn’t intentionally plant these weed seeds. The mother weed plant that grew in the garden this past season lived a good life, went on to make a flower, which led to the next natural step of producing seeds to reproduce. As the seed ripened in the flower pod head, the seeds prepared to drop, scatter or to make their way to the ground in one method or another. Thus they plant themselves at the appropriate time to begin growing.

So those weed babies growing in the garden now planted themselves sometime during the past growing season. They have been waiting for cool temperatures, shorter light days and a little rain to get off to a great start. These weeds, like the flower seeds we intentionally plant in fall are what I call “hardy” annuals meaning they not only survive our winters, but they literally thrive afterward.

My most pesky winter/spring weed is chickweed, of which I grow a bumper crop each year! Right now they are about 1″ tall and it is a breeze to take them out with our Razor or Garden Hoe. Thirty minutes of hoeing now will save a day’s worth of pulling mature weeds in the spring—no kidding!

I know most folks think hoeing is a back-breaker of a job, but this is not true when you use our “real” Garden or Razor Hoes. When you use our hoes, you stand upright to work, not hunched over, and pull the hoe through the top ½-1″ of soil, shaving the ground. This destroys all the weed growth going on in the top layer of soil where weeds seeds get what they need; light, air and water.

You will find after hoeing your beds a couple of times in early winter and topping off with compost and/or mulch, your garden is ready to put on a show in spring, without needing a weeding!

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