Weeds on the Farm After Planting

Now that the growing season is in full swing, many weeds have popped up alongside the tomatoes and peppers we are growing at the farm! The tomatoes were only watered once, at planting, but the peppers are irrigated throughout the season using drip tape. This irrigation caused weed seeds in the soil to germinate and grow. The weeds compete with our immature plants for water stored in the soil. 

At our farm, we have mostly pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus), purslane, nettles, and horse tail ferns. One way we identify the weeds are the shapes and colors of the leaves. The underside of the small pigweed plants is bright purple. 

How can we manage these weeds effectively without using any herbicides? As organic farmers, we have several different techniques to suppress and remove weeds. These include mechanical cultivation using special tractor blades, hand weeding, and flame weeding that uses heat to kill the weeds.

At Opal Creek farm this season, we first uses the tractor with specialized cultivation attachments to bury the weeds. We then follow up with a hand held stirrup hoe to remove the weeds that are too close to our crop plants to be removed by the tractor. 

Weed control at the farm is a major concern for organic farmers like us. Almost all labor during the spring months after planting is being used for weed management! If we don’t control the weeds, we could have a crop failure. If weeds are allowed to go to seed, the weed seed bank on our land grows and we will have more weed challenges in the future. As we learn more about our land and the weeds that come up, we can adjust our strategies. Next year we may want to try flame weeding!