June is a great month to practice your swing. I like to think of this on a golf course. Although I do not get out as often as I would like, I practice in my mind when I am out hoeing weeds in the middle of the field. It takes great precision to hit the ball straight… I really do not care how far it goes, just so I am in bounds. Same goes for hoeing cabbage, cukes, peppers, beets or whatever. Some people think going thru the motion is going to automatically kill the weed. When you are hoeing a field one must have enough downward pressure on the plant to pull the roots out. One just can’t assume if the top gets cut off that the weed will die, generally it will continue to grow and be burdensome three weeks from now. One can’t assume that he/she will never have to bend down; Lifetime Fitness has developed a nice business strategy by having people bend down and work up a sweat, same holds true to the field. If a weed is close to the plant that you are hoeing we sometimes have to bend over and manually pull the weed out. There is only one other task that a hoer must do when weeding and that is to look for doubles. During the process of hoeing we want even spacing of our crop throughout the field; to ensure this happens we want to hoe out any plant that is too close to the other so we get a mature plant that yields a decent product.
Hoeing is not complicated but it is a timing thing. We try to get into a field before the weeds are a couple of inches high. Number one, it makes the job easier. Number two, the weeds will not rob any nutrients from the crop that you are trying to produce. So grab your hoes, practice your swing and enjoy the sunshine in a peaceful atmosphere. Sometimes it is better than the golf course.
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