Couple of weed ids please!

[chris]

I've this tiny leaved green stuff all over my freshly prepared beds (well, fresh a couple of weeks ago). It's only shallow rooted - perhaps 1cm.

Picking it out is a nightmare. Can I dig it in, or cover it with a compost / other mulch?



What's this also please?


TIA

[Aberdeenplotter]

Just get the hoe going and keep it going and you will eventually get rid. The second pic looks a bit like rosebay willow herb to me although I would have expected to see a pink tinge to the leaf. Try digging it out. If it is rosebay willow herb, it will have have a long trailing root system. It's a horrible weed.

[ginger ninger]

Second ones definitely willow herb. Elephant hawk moths love it. First one looks like baby chickweed?

[Two_Sheds]

It's hard to see what you're focussing on in the first pic Chris. Is the weed stretchy when you pull it? That's chickweed. It has tiny white star-like flowers. Guinea pigs & rabbits like it, it's edible for us too

[chris]

Rubbish phone camera - that's why ! Mind of its own. It's all the same stuff, just that bit I'd pulled a bit was a bit more established. Seems to establish very fast over bare ground.

I'm planning on growing a lot of squash, in a hope to shade out these weeds -so come harvest time they'll have died and picking them out should be a bit easier. As I won't be planting there for a couple of weeks, I don't want to completely clear the beds if it's going to just take over again! So not sure what to do there.

[Two_Sheds]

Don't bother weeding until it's flowering. Let weeds grow as big as you can so that they shade out other weeds. Then take them out before they go to seed

[chris]

Ok, good idea I just hate seeing everyone else's soil so damn fine and weed free!

[Two_Sheds]

Their soil is only weed free because they spend 8 hrs a day hoeing it

Life's too short

(and besides, bare soil will only allow light to reach the ungerminated weed seeds which will then ... germinate)