Weeding potatoes with a trimmer: principle and efficiency of the method

Do I need to weed potatoes?

People are increasingly trying to move away from the manual cultivation of potatoes. This brings a lot of health problems and takes time. Planting, irrigation, and weeding are increasingly becoming mechanized.

Do I need to weed potatoes? A few facts:

Many believe that it will grow anyway, once planted. But with all the variety of weeds, it is not able to fully develop. In the early stages of growth and formation of the bush, it is very important that the garden is clean, otherwise harmful vegetation will ruin the potatoes and prevent the vegetable from gaining momentum in full force.
Another fact why weeding is necessary is pulling nutrients out of the soil. Rhizome, creeping, with abundant green mass of grass will absorb humus much faster than the culture develops.
Weeds are a haven for the fruitful development of some insect pests, which lay their eggs on it in autumn, and in spring they are born and begin to eagerly eat young potatoes.
With rapid growth, the weeds will become a "carpet", then the potatoes will not receive the full amount of light and air.

Usually, weeding the garden is carried out several times per season, and until the time when the bushes get stronger, rise, then they themselves will be able to suppress the weeds growing under them.

Testimonials

Nadezhda, 52 years old:
We have a large vegetable garden for planting potatoes. Therefore, it is necessary to use mechanisms during weeding. Otherwise, it is simply not possible to cope with such a planting area. We use a walk-behind tractor for weeding. It makes the job much easier.

Sergey, 42 years old:
We have a small area for planting potatoes. Therefore, there is no need to use a walk-behind tractor or trimmer. We do quite well with ordinary hoes. It is convenient, you can immediately spud the bushes.

Weeding when growing potatoes is a must. It gets rid of weeds, allowing plants to get the right amount of sunlight and air at the beginning. With a large area of the site, it is better to use mechanized processing methods. If the planting area is small, the potatoes are weeded with ordinary hoes.

Description of weeding potatoes and timing

Weeding is a process that involves removing weeds from vegetable beds. The yield of the crop depends on the quality and timeliness of its implementation. Weeding can be manual, mechanized and chemical.

For potato beds, it is important to start weeding a week after planting, because the weeds are much faster than the growth of the vegetable.

The first time weeds are removed at the end of May, beginning of June, depending on the timing of planting potatoes. For different regions, this is precisely from May to June. Here you can resort to using harrows, hoes and other mechanisms to facilitate work. This will be easy, since the potatoes are still deep in the soil.

At first, the grass is removed as it appears, about once every two weeks. The second and subsequent weeding should be equal to the appearance of a new layer of weeds, before hilling.

During hilling, and this is in early July, they try to overcome the harmful vegetation as much as possible, since after this procedure it will be unreasonable to use hoes and various mechanisms, only in the aisles, if they are wide enough.

How to weed?

At the moment, there are various devices for weeding a vegetable. This could be:
https://youtu.be/COVVOAdL4Q8

hoe;
hoe;
flat cutter;
cultivator.

A modern person does not want to waste time and comes up with newer devices for the shelf. These include a walk-behind tractor. Facilitates work several times.This will be especially noted by the person who planted root crops under a shovel.

Motoblock

A special device designed for soil cultivation. Weeding potatoes with a walk-behind tractor is carried out using paws or a weeding machine. The paws are most commonly used. They are fixed on holders, adjusting to the size of the row spacing.

They should overlap a little. When attaching the legs, it is necessary to place them so that one is in front of the other. This placement prevents cut plants from clogging the tool. Experienced professionals know how to make them at home.

The paws are a special device for weeding. They can be one-sided, two-sided and lancet. Depending on the installation, it processes a row from one or two sides. With the help of a walk-behind tractor, it is easy to weed potatoes, since the device is characterized by high productivity.

As a rule, walk-behind tractors are used in farms.

Cultivator

Growing potatoes is a laborious process that requires time and effort. Weeding potatoes is one of the important stages of growing. To facilitate the process of removing weeds, a cultivator is used. The device can be manual, electric, and also equipped with a gasoline engine.

You can also remove parasitic plants from the garden bed manually. This is a real find for elderly gardeners who suffer from arthrosis. For weeding potatoes, a tool is bought in a store or made by hand. The cultivator removes the plants along with the root system.

Types of cultivator attachments

To cultivate the beds, cultivators equipped with a pair of knives are most often used. They are located at an angle of 45 degrees to each other. Not a single plant and device, which, instead of knives, are equipped with small forks with teeth, are not allowed through. To control such a tool it was easier, wheels are installed to them.

The farmer pushes him, pressing down on the soil. Thus, labor productivity increases.

Weeding potatoes with hedgehogs is a convenient way to get rid of parasitic plants and at the same time spud the garden bed. Potato hedgehogs are a structure made of two cones. Both cones have 3 wheels, the material of which is metal. They all differ in size, since they have different diameters to facilitate work.

Sharp spikes are welded onto metal wheels. Before work, hedgehogs for weeding potatoes are put on the frame of the cultivator. At the moment of the wheel rotation, the thorns pull out the weeds and huddle the beds. The use of hedgehogs in this case increases labor productivity.

This device has also been improved by equipping it with a motor. After that, it became even more convenient to use a motor-cultivator. It makes it easier to process the crop. The use of a motor allows the mini-fixture to make it easier to work in the garden.

Potato weeding tools

Today there is a large selection of hand tools and mechanized devices for weeding potatoes.

Motoblock and its attachments

The tiller and its modifications are designed specifically for soil cultivation, replacing manual labor with mechanical labor. Wheels, nozzles, handles, gasoline - these components ensure its operation.

To remove weeds, nozzles are used in the form of weeding cutters, flat cutters, paws:

Rotary cutters are mainly used for weeding potatoes and incorporating fertilizers.The star-shaped plates are attached to the work shaft, set the desired distance equal to the spacing of the rows, and then do the work.
Pointed paws are also used by gardeners for weeding potatoes, equipped with V-shaped plows, which cut weeds to a depth of 3 cm, while not raising dust and not spoiling the tubers.
Rotary hedgehogs are used with a row spacing of 50-70 cm. With such a nozzle, you can weed a fairly small area of potatoes even with frequent planting.
Cone hedgehogs capable of pruning weeds on the surface and inside the soil that have not yet emerged. In addition, the nozzle performs the function of loosening the top layer of the earth.

The walk-behind tractor with its attachments significantly speeds up the weeding process and reduces the time spent on it. This device can be used even by a woman with certain skills, although it is more difficult for her than a hoe or hoe.

Cultivator

This device is akin to a walk-behind tractor, but slightly smaller and more compact, easier to use. To carry out agrotechnical measures on potatoes, electric, manual and gasoline cultivators are used. For them, there can be nozzles, according to the principle of operation, similar to the nozzles of a walk-behind tractor.

How often is it done?

It is not enough to know how to weed potatoes quickly. It is important to understand when it is best to do this, and whether it is possible to do such work during flowering. The shelf is made only twice per season.

Weeds are removed for the first time a month after planting the crop. The second - when the bushes reach 20-25 cm in height. In this case, weeding is combined with hilling. Many people are interested in whether it is allowed to weed potatoes during flowering.

The second is carried out a few days before the flowers appear. Why do that? As soon as the flowers appeared, this indicates that the bush has already formed and the culture does not need such care. This period usually falls in mid-July.

General rules for weeding

All the rules for weeding potato beds are reduced to one, in order to easily and quickly eliminate weeds. What you should pay attention to when cleaning your garden:

It is important to carry out the first and a few more weeding before the plants begin to come into contact with each other, otherwise precious time will be spent to clear the grass that has risen in several waves.
Skipping early weeding is not recommended. It is lighter and faster, allows you to easily move between the bushes without harming them.
It is not necessary to polish it randomly, but starting from a certain corner or strip, so as not to miss the potatoes.
It is best to rinse in wet, cloudy weather. If the weeding took place in hot weather, wear a cap and light clothing to avoid sunstroke.
As the manipulations are performed, they monitor the potatoes to identify diseased specimens. If you weed in the evening, after 4:00 pm, the likelihood of seeing diseases and pests on potatoes is reduced.
In cases of plowing the land for potatoes, tractors with mounted plows are most often attracted, which do not plow the first couple of meters on a hundred square meters, but use them to turn to a new paddock, therefore they pay special attention to this place.

With weeding, gardeners combine the collection of caterpillars, aphids and Colorado beetles by hand. If there are few beetles, this option will be effective and will not force you to resort to chemistry.

Additional attachments

In addition to the cultivator attachment, there are many other accessories in stores that are mounted on the trimmer, these include:

Drill. When installed on a petrol trimmer, you can work without electricity.
Lopper. Works like a hacksaw.
Gardening scissors. With their help, it is easy to trim bushes, trees and tidy hedges.
Aerator. Breaks down the crust on the surface of the lawn.
Pole cutter. With this attachment, you can remove branches up to a height of 4 meters.
Snow blower.Designed to remove snow from garden paths and playgrounds.

The downside of all these useful attachments is their high price. Also, when equipped with any attachment, the trimmer weight will increase by 5-6 kg, not everyone will be able to work with such a tool.

To make your gardening easier, you need to purchase several different trimmer attachments. If the budget is limited, then the tools for the brushcutter can be made independently.

DIY potato weeding tools

Even when buying the simplest hoe, it does not always justify itself. The cutting may not fit, the cut angle is not the same. People always try to make work easier and begin to redesign the device: weld additional cutters onto motoblock nozzles, make new hoes. Homemade designs are often more effective than buying. What can you do with your own hands.

To make a hoe, like any other device, you need metal, a welding machine, and the skills of a welder.

In addition - wooden cuttings, fasteners. If in the arsenal of obsolete things there is a manual ripper with a flat-cut frame, some parts can be taken from there or made a new one according to its type:

Cut a long strip of thin durable metal, bend it, imitating a square without one edge. It turns out a flat-cut frame.
You need to purchase sprockets for such a plane cutter or design it yourself, if skills and abilities allow.
All parts are also connected with metal rods, but so that the ripper blades float freely, and the working frame can move slightly back and forth.
Weld a small cylinder under the handle.

For every home garden owner, the most important task in the summer for growing a rich harvest is getting rid of weeds. The latest developments in the field of technical means for the garden and vegetable garden have allowed the owners of the sites to re-equip units with a highly specialized focus in universal devices. And this greatly facilitated the daily work of gardeners. Weeding potatoes with a trimmer makes it possible to carry out this agrotechnical measure without much physical effort.

The harm and benefits of a homemade tool

Among summer residents there is an opinion that purchased devices are not needed on 6 "acres". There is some truth in these words. Quickly weeding planted potatoes with a trimmer runs the risk of damaging the bush. If the weeding of young potatoes is done with a walk-behind tractor, then the summer resident will disturb the nutrient layer of the soil without experience. The result is a slowdown in growth and loss of part of the crop.

The flip side of the coin is that the quality of homemade tools leaves much to be desired. The summer resident does not always adhere to the parameters of the placement of the blades, which negatively affects the quality of processing. For example, potatoes processed on their own directly during flowering with a homemade hoe may not grow. If the summer resident feels the strength in himself, then you can make the simplest tool.

A universal solution - "hedgehogs" that can be installed on a gasoline cultivator. First, you get to know the basics. "Hedgehog" consists of several elements:

soil ripper (hollow pipe) - steel teeth are welded to it;
holder;
frame.

The soil ripper is fixed on the spacer frame, and then the structure is supplemented with a wooden handle. It is necessary to move the device along the surface of the earth. The next part required is three steel discs of the following diameters:

100, 200, 300 mm;
240, 180, 100 mm.

To assemble the structure, you will need a pipe with a diameter of 25 mm. In order for hedgehogs for fast weeding of potatoes to last a long time, the steel discs are fastened to each other using a steel lintel. They start with the disc, the diameter of which is the largest, going to the smallest. The distance between the discs is 15-17 cm.For the manufacture of teeth, a steel rod is taken, which is cut into 40 pieces.

Features of weeding potatoes with a trimmer

A trimmer, or brushcutter, is a device that operates on electricity or burning gasoline. Its cutting elements are special cutters, fishing line or sharp metal knives. Correctly organized weeding significantly saves the gardener's time and physical strength. At the same time, unlike manual weeding, this method of cleaning the ridges makes it possible to immediately mulch them with the help of cut grass. Mulch will retain moisture in the soil, attract worms that loosen the soil and improve the fertile layer, and will become an additional fertilizer for potatoes. That is why supporters of organic farming prefer to weed potato areas with a trimmer.

Video with a visual demonstration of weeding potatoes with a trimmer:

Growing potatoes in a way that does not require weeding

Sometimes a method of growing potatoes is used, which eliminates weeding. For this, preparations begin in the fall. After harvesting, the site is dug to a great depth. So, get rid of the remaining weeds and their seeds. From above, after leveling the surface, lay a thick layer of straw or siderates mown in advance. The thickness should be 10 cm.

In winter, under the snow, the covering layer smoothes. Simultaneously with the grass, weed seeds will sprinkle. In the spring, rotted straw will become mulch. It will retain moisture from melting snow in the ground and retard the development of weeds. As a result, weeds will grow less and the amount of weeding work will be reduced.

Pros and cons of weeding potatoes with a trimmer

The advantages of using a technical device are:

easy weeding, which does not require much physical effort, which makes it possible to perform work for the elderly, adolescents, women;
a small amount of time spent;
multifunctionality of the device: simultaneously with weeding, loosening, oxygenation of the soil, mixing of the soil with fertilizers is carried out;
when using some nozzles, weeds grow very slowly afterwards: for example, after processing with a round fishing line in the trimmer head, the vegetation does not emerge for a long time;
the work is facilitated by the fact that the cut grass does not need to be carried away from the potato garden - it will become an additional fertilizer and an excellent mulching agent.

Disadvantages of this potato weeding:

the impossibility of its implementation on heavy, clayey soils;
the need to apply only to small, not yet rooted weeds;
weeding of potatoes can be carried out only after the emergence of shoots, however, the grass by this time may already have taken root;
hilling potatoes without a hoe and the usual manual method of processing will not work.

Nozzles for walk-behind tractors

In addition to the above nozzles for walk-behind tractors, there are others that you should pay attention to.

Rotary hedgehogs

Rotary hedgehogs are a nozzle, on each side of which there are three metal discs of different diameters - from a disk of a larger diameter inside the nozzle to a disk of a smaller diameter outside.Metal pins are placed along the edges of the disc. This attachment is suitable for almost any type of motoblocks, perfectly fluffs and weeds beds with a width of 50 to 70 cm.

In the next video, you can learn how to weed potatoes using hedgehogs.

Cone hedgehogs

According to the principle of their action, conical hedgehogs for a walk-behind tractor are similar to rotary ones. But, unlike rotary ones, three metal discs are replaced by a lattice metal cone, on the lattices of which metal pins are also welded. It should be noted that weeding the beds with the help of cone hedgehogs is the least laborious method of weeding.

Milling cutter

This nozzle can be used not only for weeding, but also for loosening the earth, digging up soil with fertilizers and other purposes - it is not for nothing that this nozzle has the popular name "soil cutter". The shape of the nozzles can be different - from discs with smooth edges to star-shaped, pin-shaped nozzles. The main principle of operation, however, is one - the tiller rotates, grinding the soil together with weeds and fertilizers. The main advantage of the nozzle is its versatility.

Potato trimmer attachments

Attachments-attachments that can be used to weed potatoes with a trimmer:

The cultivator is the most popular attachment among gardeners, thanks to which you can simultaneously get rid of weeds and loosen the soil. Cultivators with soil milling cutters are disc elements with sharp blades that fit on a common axle. For one nozzle, 4 cutters are used.
The three-blade knife is used for cutting weeds. A metal knife is used for straight bar trimmers, a plastic knife for curved bar devices.
The trimmer head with line is used for row spacing. There are 2 types of fishing line - round and faceted.

A brushcutter with a motor located at the top is best suited for weeding potatoes. This device can be used in wet grass. The attachments are selected based on the power of the trimmer. If you use a nozzle that is too large, the motor of the device will quickly overheat and become unusable.

A video about the brushcutter cultivator attachment will allow you to use it correctly, eliminating the need to manually weed potato beds:

Advantages and disadvantages of the cultivator attachment

The trimmer cultivator attachment is becoming more and more popular with customers. Here are some of the benefits of this device:

Easy to maintain.
Perceptibly cheaper in comparison with the equipment for a motor-cultivator.
Such a cultivator is simply irreplaceable for those people who have many greenhouses. With this device, you can quickly loosen the soil in the greenhouse and saturate it with oxygen.
The design is very high quality, which makes it possible to use the cultivator for a long time.
Protective shield. Protects operator from debris.

Cultivator Kraftsman

There are not so many disadvantages:

Each attachment makes the structure heavier; with prolonged work, a person will feel fatigue.
It is necessary to select a nozzle and a trimmer with the same connecting nodes.
Due to vibration, it is often inconvenient to operate the trimmer switch button and hold a heavy unit on the weight.

Important! The cultivator attachment model must be produced by the same company as the trimmer. If the tool for loosening is produced by Husqvarna, and the brushcutter is from Oleo-Mac, then the soil will not work: the attachment simply cannot be hung.

How to properly weed potatoes with a trimmer

Fulfillment of the rules for the correct weeding of potatoes with a trimmer will allow you to avoid mistakes and carry out the work quickly, easily:

It is better to weed potatoes in a respirator and goggles, since when the cutters rotate, dust and weed particles fly up.
Treatment with a trimmer is carried out at least once every 14 days, since weeds that have not yet rooted succumb to it.
The best time to weed is an early sunny morning.
Simultaneously with getting rid of weeds, the potato ridges are loosened if the cutting elements are deepened by more than 1.5 cm.
The lower the engine power, the more often you should take a break to give it a rest.
Before work, the cutters are treated with silicone grease, and such weeding is not carried out on heavy soil.
Trimmer attachments must be periodically treated with a disinfectant that will kill pathogens.
No other people should be around when working.

With a trimmer

There is another option for quickly getting rid of parasitic plants - this is a potato trimmer. It is a scythe equipped with a motor. A special nozzle is provided for removing weeds. How to weed potatoes:

Super cultivator from the trimmer.

We adhere to the following order of production of hedgehogs:

For the 1st cone-shaped hedgehog, you need to find three iron rings, in other words, discs of various sizes. The option 240x170x100 mm is suitable, or you can calculate your characteristics.
A hole is drilled in the center of the discs, after which they are put on an iron pipe with a diameter of 25 mm. A maximum distance of 180 mm is maintained between the discs, after which they are welded to the pipe. If rings are used instead of discs, then they are welded to the pipe with jumpers from a bar. In other words, it looks like spoked wheels.
During this period, a conical design of 3 rings, in other words, discs, came out. Now you need to weld the thorns here. They are cut with a length of 60–100 mm from an iron bar with a diameter of 10–12 mm. The suggested size of a hedgehog will use about 40 thorns. The workpieces are welded to the ends of the discs or rings at an equal distance.
The second hedgehog is made according to a similar principle. Now they need to be combined into one mechanism. Huge wheels will be placed inside the structure, therefore, on this side of the hedgehogs, you need to make the main mechanism for fastening. If necessary, inside the pipe there is an option to stick bearings with a shaft or to grind a mechanism with sleeve bushings. Two hedgehogs are connected to each other with a bracket at an angle of 45 °.
At one time, weeding potatoes with a walk-behind tractor, a powerful load is applied to hedgehogs. There is an option to reduce it by installing 2 guide wheels. They are fixed on a bracket made of a metal strip 70 mm wide and two or more 4 mm wide.

It is better to test the finished trailed mechanism on an empty plot of the garden. At one time, the movements of the walk-behind tractor, hedgehogs are made to constantly spin, and after they remain a perfectly loosened, neat furrow.

The video shows hedgehogs made by themselves:

If the household has a walk-behind tractor, hedgehogs will simplify the care of potatoes. There will be no need for manual weeding with a hoe, plus loosening the land will increase the yield.