The name of the game this week is WEEDING!

While we mostly had the July 4th holiday off, the weeds growing in our fields never take a vacation!

On our weekly field walk yesterday morning it felt like the weeds exploded over the weekend!

It’s a race being run at farms across our region.

We have several ways to control or fight back the weeds.

One of the most foolproof ways is using black plastic mulch, which I’ve spoken about before. This creates a physical barrier, keeping the sun off of weeds so they can’t photosynthesize and grow.

Landscape fabric is another physical barrier. We use this exclusively in the aisles between beds. It is especially helpful in long season crops and in Pick-Your-Own crops.

We use co-linear hoes on smaller or (hopefully) thread-stage weeds. Thread-stage weeds are simply weeds that have just germinated and are so small they look like threads in the soil. Weeding at this stage is very efficient, but time has a way of getting away from us with transplanting, harvesting and other farm tasks to get done.

When the weeds get away from us, our hands become the most often used tools for weed control. Pulling weeds by hand can be time consuming, but satisfying, and sometimes, there is just no other way.

Wish us luck in our battle against the weeds. We need it!