Best Tools for Weeding Carrots and Onions

Benefits of Removing Weeds

There are several benefits of removing weeds from the vegetable garden such as improved plant growth and garden soil. Weeds can cause restricts on plant growth due to them competing for nutrients, soil, water, and space that the plants you are trying to get growth development. One more issue with weeds in the garden is they may even smother smaller plants that are trying to germinate or prevent them from growing at all. Also, some invasive weeds can destroy a habitat and damage all the native plants that grow there. To avoid these harsh and invasive weeds it is best to remove them quickly before they become a bigger problem and destroy the plant growth in the vegetable garden.

Weeding Carrots and Onions

On this week's episode, Travis is using two tools to demonstrate for weeding carrots and onions. In the garden, Travis has five rows of carrots that are planted on double rows with drip tape buried in the middle. He recommends planting on double rows because we get the most utility out of drip tape and once the carrots get bigger they will help shade out in the middle area where the drip tape is buried. The first tool that Travis suggests using when weeding carrots and onions is the Single Wheel Hoe. Since the single wheel hoe is smaller it has an advantage over the double wheel hoe when it comes to weeding in the vegetable garden. With the cultivator teeth attachment, it makes weeding carrots and onions easier and quicker between tight rows of planted plants in the garden. However, when needing to weed on top of the beds and in between the plants along the double row the best tool to use is the Single Tine Cultivator. When using this cultivator, Travis turns it sideways to skim across the area to remove weeds in tight spaces and avoid damaging the drip tape that is already buried in the garden.

Additional Way to Remove Weeds

If you experience a serious problem with weeds in the garden another way to suppress those weed pressures is by growing cover crops in the garden. Some cover crops like Buckwheat, Sunn Hemp, Daikon Radish, and Brown Top Millet all have characteristics that grow faster in order to outpace weed growth. When planting cover crops we prefer to use our garden seeder to get precise planting in the vegetable garden. When growing cover crops the key to making them succeed in the garden is they should be incorporated back into the soil before going to seed to prevent reseeding problems.

Carrot and Onion Varieties

There are a couple of popular carrot and onion varieties that are known to be the best to grow in the vegetable garden. Some of the carrot varieties include Danvers, Scarlet Nantes, Bolero and Viper. The best way to grow carrots is by direct seeding in a think band along the rows in the vegetable garden. The well-known onion varieties include Texas Legend, Candy, Savannah Sweet, and Warrior Bunching. When growing onions they should be planted on drip tape to ensure they get an accurate amount of irrigation in the garden.