First Time Farmer- Weeding 101

I've been using the 'farmer' keyword a lot and I have been getting complaints about my posts not being actually about farming. So if you happen to have found this post today, lucky you. Today's the day where I will be writing about what it was actually like to farm.

When I arrived the farm in July, most of the planting were done. What's left to do was mostly taking care of the plants make sure that they grow properly until harvest in the fall. Although the idea of taking care of plants may seem simple, you would think that it's the time where  farmers can relax, watch the crops grow. BUT NO. There was this one small detail that game developers forgot to incorporate into their games which is WEEDING. Lots and lots of weeding (no innuendos intended there, btw. This is serious stuff).

A bed full of weeds. Little carrots are somewhere in between

For those you who don't know, weeds are basically any unwanted/unplanted plants that grow on your around your crop, these weeds would sometimes steal nutrients away from your crop- that's why it needs to be get rid of (I know, I know. This is 3rd grade science but just wanted to recap and play the teacher role here ok?). They grow and reproduce naturally. The seeds are sometimes in the soil, in the air, everywhere, basically- so they grow like madness, it never ends. And when you're an organic farm, you can't use pesticides or any kind of chemicals for weed controls. I kind of understood that before coming to the farm but what I didn't understand was holy fuck how much weeds can grow.

Length of a row can stretch quite far

I would like to quote Andrew, a ninja weeder, who once made this joke when he was showing us on how to efficiently weed onions.

"First there was nothing

Second comes the plant, third comes the water

Then God said, let there be weeds..."

And that was it.

Not sure if that was universally funny, or just farmer girl funny... Or just Nicha funny. But I thought it was hilarious.

After having spent more than 3 weeks weeding- I consider myself quite an expert on the topic. Thanks to master Andrew, I think I can now say that I'm the best weeder around my Sathorn block. ;) Good enough to share with you my techniques and hope that you learn something by the end.

Weeding 101- Basic Steps to be a Successful Weeder

1. Identify your crop
• The most crucial step here. You must know what your crop looks like at different stages of its development. I can't tell you how many carrots and broccolis I killed not knowing my crop, because then the farm would surely sue if they were to ever find out.
• For me, half of the time I didn't know what the plant looked like because I've only eaten the parts that are sold in the supermarket (so things like carrots, beetroot, asparagus) and the other half of the time I don't even know that such vegetables existed (kohlrabi, squash- always thought that it was just a sport)
• To illustrate how big of a pain in the ass to learn in perspective, here's an easy exercise for you. 
• Please identify the carrot plant from the image below:
• See the bottom of post for answer
2. Categorize and learn the different types weeds
• You may think that it's pretty simple once you understand what your crop looks like, the rest you would just pull it out of the soil. But without proper planning, it can be quite inefficient, and also, you could hurt your self dramatically while at it
• Here are some of the examples of the weeds I encountered in a day. (sampled from a half a meter squared plot)
• The hairy ones- think of these like if you were going waxing, they would pull the strip once, it wouldn't get rid of all the hair. They do it twice but then you would still need to touch it up with a tweezer. 



(A very small bush though this one)

• The tizzle- aka the devil's root. These ones are thorny as shit- pretty sure there were these plants in Disney's sleeping beauty.

  

  This one is a family of two

• Grass- simple but a real pain in the ass sometimes. Here's a case study

  

  The grass was stuck with the celery. This is how to get rid of the weed.

• Lightly stinging ones that stick to your clothes but if you're not careful it could leave a cat's scratch mark on your arms or face
  
• Spinach looking ones- makes you wonder why in Popeyes it always has to come from a can
  
• Morning glory looking ones- make u miss home and the pak boong fai dang

• A leg of sunglasses (not really a weed but interesting to have found in the field)

  

  Notice the guy with the pink shirt and his asscrack.- to be explained in the next post

• And a whole bunch of other ones I leave to you explore
3. Grab a whole bunch of weeds and just pull
• Once you're confident that you're not pulling the crop. Just go ahead and do it. And do them in lines so that you are more efficient
• Very empowering step, you feel like godzilla taking down buildings
• Made my arms smaller! If I spent three more months doing that my arms would be as famous as Michelle Obama's
4. Clean up in between
• Most tedious part. Making sure all the roots were pulled up by running your fingers through the soil
• Especially if you're a perfectionist such as myself, you wouldn't want to leave a hair of greenery on your row. Probably why I was the slowest weeder of the group. But I'm a firm believer on quality over speed

  

  My carrot row, bitch. (Note that this was from my first week of weeding)

The levels do get more complex. But since this is an entertainment rather than an educational blog, we'll just leave it as that. Though if you are interested here are some intros to the other courses that you could enroll in, you can let me know in the comments whether I should start creating an outline for these:

• Weeding 201 involves edible weeds. So you have to weed around those weeds to in addition to the crop.
• Weeding 301 introduces hoes to help you speed up your game. Both small and big hoes are great options here.
• Weeding 401 the senior course will utilize a tractor. How to use machines to help weed without running over all your crops

And as promised, here's the answer to the little quiz you took. I know it's almost as hard as rocket science. Not please, people. Don't go wasting food now that you know how difficult it is to grow it.

Until next time.