Weed alert

[LovelyBaker]

Hello everyone!

I got my first allotment in autumn and had to build it from scratch. After a general pre-winter rotation I have now build my raised beds and have started to sow seeds outside. Unfortunately a quarter of the allotment seems to be infested with a tiny weeds. They are very easy to pull out but there are literally hundreds of them!

I haven't got a picture to hand, but will try to take one in the next days. Can anyone already guess what I am talking about? They are about one centimetre high and have two tiny green leaves.

Two of the three beds thee beds the weeds have spread to are still uncultivated (apart from a general digging over a few weeks ago). If I rotate the soil again, will the little weeds come back and should I rather pull them out one by one? And how do I deal with them on the other bed, where I have sown beet root?

Thanks for your help!
Franzi

[scarey55]

The two leaves has me confused but could it be Chickweed? that's easy to pull out and grows everywhere.

Just a complete guess at this stage, looking forward to seeing a photo.

[scarey55]

... sorry, where are my manners - welcome to the Vine

[rustylady]

Weeds, like most of the veg we grow, start life from seeds which produce two leaves. Yours could be anything.

Rather than dig again, which will simply bring more weed seeds to the surface, hoe them off.

[Bill HH]

I thought chick weed mainly because it is so common, but the sudden increase is mainly due to you digging and bringing up lots of last years or previous years seeds and of course the milder weather. Dont let these go to seed and cause problems for future years. "One years seeds, seven years weeds" is the saying. As Rustylady said Hoeing is the way to go unless you can cover the ground with something and kill them that way. Mulching with compost or using cardboard, black plastic etc is the ideal way if you can, home made compost will smother the little darlings and feed the soil too. win win.

[Two_Sheds]

After a ...rotation ... a quarter of the allotment seems to be infested with a tiny weeds.

Do you mean you used a rotavator? That's a very efficient tool for producing millions of weeds
The soil is full of weed seeds, and as you turn the soil you bring buried seeds up to the light, where they germinate.


My advice now is: leave the weeds to grow big and pull them just before they flower. You will do less weeding overall than if you attempt to pull out every tiny weed, because big weeds shade out smaller weeds. Also, they can't spread if they don't flower (unless you have bramble, couch grass, bindweed, horsetail)