[harry]

As a newcomer to this growing lark, i wasn't expecting my onion bed to be full of tiny weeds thousands of them. How do i get rid of them without damaging my onions I've already chopped one in half. Also somethings eating my pea plants the leaves are all nibbled.

[Lardman]

Depends on the spacing you've left between your onions.. If you can get the hoe in thats great, just run down the rows - CAREFULLY - problem solved for a day or two then it will need doing again.

If you have planted closely then its hand weeding time  I've used an old table fork before now.  I use the width of my hoe blade as a minimum planting distance, it saves such a lot of hassle and many a rude word.

Oh and every patch of bare earth will be covered in weeds if you leave it a week or 2 - Mother nature doesn't like empty beds 

[mumofstig]

It's probably pea and bean weevil munching on your peas..........nothing to do ...the peas usually just grow out of them

[prakash_mib]

I had a problem with weeds inbetween the onions too. while hoeing is a very good idea you might need to do it very carefully by not hoeing the stalk. Instead I've made a practise of warming up myself for the plot work by removing the weeds by hand for 10 minutes and start the regular work. and cool down again at the end of the work again by hand pulling the weeds. Works a treat although when you finish them at the end you will start seeing weeds at the start. thats a continuous cycle until onions beat them with their prowess. But you will be amazed by how many you pull out during your 10 minutes warm up and cool down.

[bigben]

I follow a similar regime - I try to include a ten minute weeding/hoeing session in every visit to my allotment and leave my bucket where I got to last time. At present my onions are posing the biggest problem. I am glad that I have left hoe sized gaps between them. The first couple of times I weeded it was a pain but now the onions are big enough to identify it is a bit easier. A lot of the old boys use weed fabric and plant the onions thru holes but as this is my first year on this allotment and I am growing 300+ onions I could not face all the hole cutting.

[fatbelly]

I am growing 300+ onions.

You are worse than me I am growing 200 Sturon Onions from sets.
And there is only the two of us at home 

[Trebor]

I plant them in rows with gaps a bid wider than my shoes. Reason being that I can shuffle along the rows while hand pulling the weeds in between the onions. Saves me time, but I do get strange looks!

[mr Isaccs]

I am growing 300+ onions.

You are worse than me I am growing 200 Sturon Onions from sets.
And there is only the two of us at home  

Me too, I've joined the excessive onion growing club this year
planted 200 sets then was given another 50 so planted them   Previous to this I'd sown 80 bedfordshire champion seeds, 50 kelsea seeds and 100 ailsa craig seeds in January and unfortunately/fortunately most of them germinated so they had to go in the ground (I hate waste).
   Mine are filling up with weeds too and after last year I thought I'd leared my lesson about spacing, apparently I have not.
   I was also a bit pessimistic with my leek seeds too this year and have about 500 romping away
   

[harry]

I put 160 onion sets in, and i spent one and half hours hoeing weeds last night but theres thousands of them

[grinling]

Spent last 2 days weeding mine looks great now.
If growing peas on the allotment, I surround the section with a chicken wire fence. This stops pigeons. Mine have little bite marks too, but they have grown past that stage now.

[wowplantz]

Can't agree wiv handweeding if you're growing hundreds of onions, it's just too much of a chore which you have to do several times if you're going to stay on top.

Until I got my spacings right to correspond with the hoe width plus a bit more,I always hoed between -rows and hand-weeded in- the- row between the plants. This was a sort of half and half compromise.

But I now I zip through because I space a bit wider and use a Stirrup Hoe which I've found gives me the best control.  BTW, I looked on e-bay and you can get them there. You still cut the odd one off whatever hoe you use but does it matter if you're growing hundreds of 'em???!!!!!