URBAN FARMER:WEEDING: IF ever there is a gardening activity less loved or more resented, I'm hard put to think of it. As a child (I come from a very large family), my busy mother used to line up my siblings and I along the bottom of a field full of muddy vegetable drills, like greyhounds at a track, and then put us to work, with the threat of no pocket money for slackers, writes FIONNUALA FALLON

Even then, it was bitterly obvious to me that there are many different types of “weeders” and that the term is only loosely descriptive. For while half of us weeded with a time-consuming, pernickety precision, the rest quickly tugged away handfuls of foliage and then cleverly scuffled up the soil, allowing the roots to live another day.

Assaulted by midges and thwarted by a wet, heavy soil that produced docks of triffid-like proportions, our main priority back then was speed. While I still highly rate speed when it comes to weeding, I’ve learnt a few useful tips in the meantime.

In the organic walled garden in the Phoenix Park, OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn are constantly weeding, by hand or with a hoe (no herbicides are approved for organic use).

“We’ll always hand-weed perennial weeds as it’s important to remove the root system. We also hand-weed in between vegetable and fruit plants to avoid damage to their stems and roots, but on paths or in between rows and drills, we hoe,” says Brian.

As experienced gardeners, they know only too well the importance of beginning early in the season before young weed seedlings have had a chance to mature, flower and set seed.

“We start hoeing as soon as we see any sign of weed growth – it saves a huge amount of time and effort later in the season. It’s really about keeping a constant eye out,” says Brian, who also advises hoeing in warm, sunny weather where possible. “If you hoe on a hot day, the young weeds wilt quickly before they get a chance to re-root, which can sometimes happen if the weather is cool and damp.”

Well-used, a garden hoe is probably the best weeding tool there is and will save you hours of laborious hand-weeding. Both the Organic Centre in Co Leitrim (www.theorganiccentre.ie) and organic suppliers Fruithill Farm in Co Cork (www.fruithillfarm.ie) sell the oscillating hoe (also known as the stirrup-hoe or the push-pull hoe) which is a particularly effective tool that cuts through weeds on the back and forward stroke.

There are also other types including the Dutch hoe, the draw hoe, the smaller onion hoe (vegetable expert Joy Larcom’s favourite) and the Ibis hoe.

But a hoe in the hands of an inexperienced gardener can be a dangerous weapon – a moment of lost concentration can result in a neatly-beheaded cabbage plant or the quick destruction of a row of emerging carrot seedlings.

So, if in doubt, start off by hand-weeding until you get a feel for it. I’ve a personal fondness for the handtool known as a daisy-grubber, which has an angled, forked blade that’s just brilliant for levering out stubborn weeds like buttercups, docks, dandelions and daisies.

Identifying what is or isn’t a weed, however, is probably the first difficulty that many inexperienced gardeners face. While most will have heard the definition of a weed as “a plant in the wrong place”, this isn’t much use if you’re unsure in the first place as to whether it is, in fact, in the wrong place.

Scutch-grass, one of the nastiest of perennial weeds, can look remarkably similar to emerging salsify seedlings, while it’s not too difficult to confuse young parsnip leaves with those of cow parsley.

And while careful labelling at sowing/planting time will help, it’s also, unfortunately, a question of familiarity – the more you have to weed, the easier you’ll find it to tell the difference.

There are also various photographic guides available in either book form or on the internet, which can be really useful. Try and get your hands on a copy of Roger Phillips’ Garden and Field Weeds by Elm Tree Books, an excellent pocket-sized guide that is out-of-print (try Abe Books at www.abebooks.com). Alternatively, two good websites are www.bayercropscience.co.uk (click on “eTools”) and www.theseedsite.co.uk. Both give photographs of many (but not all) common weeds as young seedlings and when in flower, along with a brief description.

It’s a great way of telling your hairy bittercress from your chickweed, although it also highlights how many seedlings look remarkably similar when they first appear above ground.

Garden Organic’s website (www.gardenorganic.org.uk) is also a great source of information, including lists of weeds, advice on their identification and control (biological, mechanical, manual and thermal), and even a section on the benefit of weeds. See also the entry on allelopathy, which studies the way in which different plants, such as scutch-grass, can inhibit the germination and development of other plants through naturally-released allelochemicals – strange but interesting stuff.

As a general guide, though, garden weeds can be loosely divided into two groups – nasty, persistent perennials with well-developed and stubborn root systems that are difficult to get rid of, and annuals which are relatively easily dealt with, as long as you get them before they set seed.

Examples of the first (and there are many) include field bindweed, dandelion, ragwort, scutch-grass, perennial rye-grass, white clover, colt’s foot, ground elder, buttercup, horsetail, dock, nettles and Japanese knotweed.

With all of these, it’s important to try and remove as much of the root system as possible, although this is often far from being an easy task. In badly infested areas, organic gardeners sometimes use heavy-gauge black plastic sheeting to cover the soil for anything up to a year as a way of clearing persistent perennials, while non-organic gardeners will be tempted to use herbicides such as RoundUp.

Annual weeds such as chickweed, hairy bittercress, groundsel, annual meadow-grass, fat hen, fumitory, scarlet pimpernel, common speedwell, robin-run-the-hedge, sun spurge and sheperd’s purse can all be hoed away with relative ease.

Once you feel you’ve done a good job of weeding, you can use a mulch of compost, manure or even straw to prevent further germination. But if you haven’t made as good a job of it as you’d hoped, you may see perennial weeds re-appear as they regenerate from roots left below ground. At that point, it’s back to hand-weeding.

Alternatively, you could completely change tack and instead consider the weed itself as a healthy nutritious crop, which is not as mad as it sounds – many weeds are both edible and packed full of vitamins and minerals.

Consider a Salade de pisssenlit,made from tender dandelion leaves, or ground elder leaves sautéed in butter and salt. Or what about a tomato and chickweed sandwich?

The beauty of this approach is that weeds, instead of being a burdensome nuisance, become a guilt-free, labour-free crop. If only life was always so easy.

Growing Peppers

It’s always fun to try growing something a little exotic, particularly when the weather forecast actually seems to be predicting a hot summer. Both sweet and chilli peppers are sun-loving tropical members of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) which also includes tomatoes, and so should be given fairly similar growing conditions, although they like a little more heat. In general, they do best under cover in a glasshouse, tunnel or beside a sunny window, but they will grow outside if given a very protected, sunny spot.

Meeda and Brian have planted their peppers in the cutting garden or slip garden, as they call it, which is a particularly warm and enclosed section within the walled garden.

“We’ve planted them next to the tomatoes, along with a few okra plants that we’re trialling,” says Meeda. “We bought a mixed packet of seeds, which included Sweet Banana, Purple Beauty, Corno di Toro Rosso and the chilli pepper Jalapeno, so it’ll be fun to see how they do. They don’t like an overly manured soil, but they do need loads of light and heat, all of which they should get in the slip garden, particularly if we get a nice, hot summer.”

A nice, hot summer? Mmmmmm. Just like the peppers, I like the sound of that.

What to sow and plant this week

Sow outdoors

Broccoli (raab & sprouting); Beetroot; Beans (French, Runner); Peas; Chinese Cabbage; Calabrese; Carrots; Cauliflower (Mini); Chicory; Endive; Komatsuna; Summer Purslane; Kohl Rabi; Lettuce; Kale (Mini); Swedes; Turnips; Sweet Corn; Cucumbers (Ridge); Radishes; Spinach; Courgettes; Rocket (Salad); Raddichio (module raised); Pak Choi; many CCA (cut-and-come-again) seeds; Pumpkins

Plant outdoors

Asparagus (fromseed, module-raised); Tomatoes; Brussels sprouts; Cabbage (summer, autumn, winter types); Cauliflower (late summer, autumn types); Lettuce; Leeks; French Beans; Runner Beans; Celery; Celeriac; Hybrid broccolis; Sprouting Broccoli; Courgettes; Fennel; Kale; Peppers; Pumpkins

• Next week Urban Farmerwill cover edible flowers
• Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer