I therefore left my tomato bed in the polytunnel for about a week and a half so the annual weeds really had a chance to grow (I can't tell you how hard it was to not weed!) I decided to do it in the polytunnel because I thought that it would reduce the amount of outside influence to the weeds so no seeds blown in or dropped by the birds.
I have 8 tomato plants in the polytunnel so I hand weeded up to the first 4 plants and then got my hoe out for the second 4. I didn't remove any hoed weeds from the soil surface (I've seen people saying that the sun burns them up so you don't need to). I did pull a few weeds by hand close to the stems of my tomatoes to protect them; as you would if you were hoeing anyway.
pro's and cons...
Hand weeding
pros
- you get more weeds right out at the roots
- there's less liklihood of damaging tender plants
- you can easily remove and compost the annual weeds
- you notice any perennial weeds (not that I had any) and so you can remove them properly
cons
- it takes much much much longer to weed by hand
Hoeing
pros
- it's super quick
cons
- it's easy to catch a tender plant
- it's easy to catch roots if anything is shallow rooted
- you only cut out the heads of the weeds and leave the roots
I thought I would measure the results based on how it looks a week later. This week I therefore went up to take a look and there was very little difference between the 2! The hoed side had some bigger weeds, that had either been missed or re-rooted itself and some new little ones, the hand weeded side only had the little ones so if you were being picky you would say that hand weeded side won but if you prefer hoeing I'd say it's just as good! I will probably do a mixture - I do like hand weeding because I find it relaxing but if I'm in a rush I won't feel guilty about hoeing.
This weekend I also managed to strim the boundaries of my plot and get weed membrane down along the fence at the top of the plot. I've been meaning to do that for ages and it already looks 100 times better. I've also strimmed down the side of the fruit cage and next to the next door fence. I've been feeling guilty about my neighbour who keeps his plot lovely and the path down the side nearest his plot was overgrown with weeds. I've now cleared all of them and whilst I haven't got the weed membrane down yet it's much tidier. I didn't dare strim at the side of the polytunnel so I'll have to get my shears out and do that by hand before covering it.
Once I have the last of the weed membrane is down I can start to think about getting the bark chippings to cover it. I have a local tree surgeon who gives the chippings away for free so I will be making the most of that service (hopefully next week). Littlest L is away on cub camp and so I've asked Mr L if he would mind coming to help me get as many chippings as we can on Saturday morning. Littlest L needs to be at the camp drop-off place at 9.30 and biggest L also needs dropping at school at 9.30 for his rehearsal but that should hopefully give us plenty of time to get some chippings. My thought is that if we get a ton bag filled and then if we can get it out of the car one of us can start transporting it up to the plot while the other goes back and fills another bag. Let's see how we manage with that but if I can get 2 bags it will give me a good idea of how much I actually need (loads I think!)
Over the coming weeks I'll have less to blog about with regards to getting things in place and sorted, all of my 'building work' is done and so once the chippings are in place my work will be all about the crops. It will be interesting to see how I get on with blogging after that - I'll have to have more thought about content to keep myself (and hopefully you) interested!
Anyway, until next week - happy gardening
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