Jun 20
What a lot of weeding
Posted in Crops Organic Farming Farming Techniques , Farm Machinery by David Wilson
We are doing a lot of weeding at the moment. We've got our motorised hoes going up and down the vegetable beds to try to reduce the weed population.
We also hand weed using the bed weeder which we lie on to pluck the weeds out - there will always be some hand weeding. If the weeds take over you may lose a crop and it's a case of every plant trying to survive!
We don't use any pesticides which is one of the reasons why organic food costs more. You can control weeds in a fraction of the time with agro chemicals. If we sprayed our 15 acres of vegetables that would probably take less than half an hour - job done.
When we weed by hand it takes days and is very labour intensive. We don't always produce as much, but the food is of a higher quality - and do you really want to put a chemical that kills weeds into your body?
Anyway, a ripe tomato grown without any chemicals should taste like a sweet fruit; we grow them here and they are fabulous and full of flavour. There is a limited season, but in my view, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
