Tractor Supply over on Hwy 278 in Hiram has a nice selection of garden tools at good prices. The Stainless Steel Garden Weeder (only $2.99) is especially good at digging those dratted onions out with. The Stainless Steel Garden Cultivator and Hoe ($2.99 as well) is excellent for pulling up weeds that are big clumping weeds. Of course, if you use the cultivator/hoe combo around your bed you won't have to deal with big weeds. You can hack those little weeds to bits before they get big.
Wild onions do the same thing that daffodils do - they make little bulbils (not bulblets) that grow and create new plants. (Turns out bulbets are little bulbs that form above ground and bulbils are the bulb babies that form underground.)Just chopping the top off the onion plant isn't going to get rid of the problem. You have to dig down, deep down, to get the bulbs. Unfortunately, little bulbs get left behind but if you keep digging them out while they are little, you get less and less each time new growth occurs.
This was a very healthy clump of onions! By the way, don't throw the onions in the compost pile. Take them home to dispose of them. We really don't want to spread more onions around since they are so hard to get rid of!
Right now there are a large number of weeds that have formed basal rosettes (which means a dense cluster of leaves at or near ground level). The cultivator/hoe combo does a great job of catching under the leaves and pulling the weed up. With as much rain as we've been having, the ground is just right for digging the weeds up easily.
King Tut of the Weeding Tools
1 comment:
Mike, you're scaring me with those tools, lol!
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