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Very basic question - how best to weed tiny green weeds coming up in flower bed

Pink678Pink678 Posts: 498
in Problem solving
When I have little green weeds just coming up in quite a clear flowerbed, and a few bigger ones, what's the best way to weed them?

I know this sounds like such a basic question, but I'm a total beginner and when I've weeded before I've been making it up as I go along really, and I can't find it online.

Do I pull them out with my fingers, or with a claw, or with a hoe?

Do I leave the pulled weeds on the bed or do I put them into the garden waste bin?

Should I avoid digging up and aerating the soil too much, such as going over it with the claw?

Or, am I supposed to leave these tiny weeds and wait until they are bigger to weed them? I was thinking if I nip them in the bud early, I'm saving myself work in the long run.

One thing I have learned is to spot any oxalis weed as I'm going along, and dig down to get that out by the root and dispose of it.

Thank you very much for any help.






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Posts

  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    If you can, hoe on a warm, dry day. The uprooted weeds will shrivel and die within hours.
    Rutland, England
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    In the pots ,jiggle the soil with your fingers. My home made compost it full of weeds and that's what I do. Quite therapeutic actually.
    In the ground hoeing can be gentle if they're small. In very small or tight areas , I use a wallpaper scraper.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • Pink678Pink678 Posts: 498
    Thank you pansyface! :) - here are the answers:

    1. Quite big - it's lawn in the middle but big flowerbeds all along the edges, many metres of it.

    2. Never handled a hoe in my life! But I'm willing to learn and my eyesight's fine.

    3. Fine with up and down off my knees. When I weeded before I'd do that, sometimes on a pad that I moved if the soil was wet, or sometimes crouching. I quite like it down there amongst it all. But on the other hand I don't like having my head upside down (or near as) for too long, I can get a bit headachey if I do that.

    4. Hmm, some but not loads!! But I need to do what it takes to keep things looking nice. And if I do it so I enjoy it, it could turn into a quite a relaxing activity like a hobby. I think standing there hoeing could be quite a relaxing time maybe, more relaxing than too long with my head down.

    5. At the moment, loads of teeny ones, and only a few of the tap root ones like dandelion. I've got one of those implements like a large bent piece of metal that is supposed to pull them up, with varying success.

    For swooshing away little weeds, do I just leave them there on top of the soil once they are out? And swoosh them away, means pulling them out with their little roots?

    I will look into your Ho Mi, it sounds interesting.
  • Pink678Pink678 Posts: 498
    Thank you BenCotto, that sounds like a good tip. So I guess the converse is true, if I hoe when it's wet they'll just re-root themselves ... ?

    I found when digging out oxalis it really worked well in the dry soil, I could pull those roots out really well without them breaking.
  • Pink678Pink678 Posts: 498
    Very interesting and good tips B3.  So I'm just jiggling it all up to disturb them and root them up I suppose. Then the little tiny weeds rot down?
    Gentle hoeing sounds relaxing if I can just leave them in there. The thing that I was wondering about is too is whether hoeing breaks up and aerates the soil too much? I read somewhere that you are not supposed to dig up the beds too much maybe?
    Wallpaper scraper, don't know if I have one but that sounds like a clever way to do it.
  • Pink678Pink678 Posts: 498
    Sounds great pansyface thank you
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    @Pink678.
    Get one! It's my most treasured garden tool😊
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • Mike AllenMike Allen Posts: 208
    I agree with Pansyface.  This is a perfectly valid question, but it does bring with it several other questions.Apart from my climbing & rambler roses.  I now grow my roses in 15ltr pots. Also my lilies are grown the same way. Periodically I will prick over the surface of the compost with an old knife, this usually does the trick, larger weeds of course can be pulled out.
    Weeding on a much larger scale, eg;in parks and gardens.  Most of the time we would use the Dutch hoe but turn it over, and use it like a chisel.  Systematic chiselling-like actions would dislodge and weeds and tend to bury them.   So the weeds were instantly turned in, as green manure or compost.  The soil was always well areated.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I would weed and mulch deeply to stop weeds rooting. It makes a big difference, esp in a non-dig space.
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    edited May 2021
    Yes a mulch of compost will eradicate all those tiny seedings by smothering them. But not the larger ones. I've been using a bamboo cane with one of those wire ground pins pushed in the end (the type used to pin geotextiles in place) to make a tiny "hoe" that can be pushed between my existing plants. In spaces that would be too tight for a normal hoe. But it's a faff
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
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