[Sharon Cox]

Hello everyone-I hope you are all keeping safe and well. Can anyone help please with some advice? I put some raised beds in my garden and ordered some premium veg top soil to fill them. I filled them up and planted several rows of different seeds.A few days later the seed bed was covered in what I assume were little weed plants literally all over the place. I contacted the soil supplier to say the soil must have been contaminated in some way but they basically didn’t want to know. You will know when your seedlings come up was all they said.Well the fact is I don’t know, it’s so littered with these little weeds. I can see different shaped seedlings coming up in the rows I planted them in but these others are choking them on mass.A few questions please, should I sit and try and pick out the weeds between what I think are my seedlings which is a ridiculous task or just rake it all out and start again. Also should premium vegetable top soil be filled with little weed seedlings within days of arrival? Thank you  I’m worn out now lol

[Yorkie]

Welcome to the forums - I've moved your question across to the GYO Board so the people who grow stuff can see it 

I wouldn't normally expect good quality top soil to have lots of weed seedlings in it, but in reality you are where you are now with it 

What did you sow?  Some plants are more obvious once they have got their first pair of true leaves (these are the ones that come after the initial pair, called seed leaves)?

Did you sow your seeds in rows?  And did you mark the ends of each row with a marker of any type?

[mumofstig]

Unless it is sold as sterilised soil, it will have weed seeds in it, I'm afraid.

The flush of weed seedling growth is what you get in ordinary soil if it's disturbed by digging or forking, until you have things under control. Often it's worth starting the year getting your bed ready, allowing time for the surface weeds to germinate, hoeing them off very lightly - and only then sowing your seeds in rows....
Sowing in marked rows allows you to hoe off weeds between the rows and then hand weeding the actual rows doesn't seem to take as long, although weeds are always an ongoing pain 

Now you have 2 choices, hoe between the rows of different shaped leaves, if you can, and then hand weed between them in the rows, themselves.
Or, hoe the lot off and start again. This time with marked rows so you can see where the seedling rows are for hoeing and weeding. Good luck!