Hotbed neglected

This corner of the hotbed has a lot of sow thistle with a few volunteer potatoes in between. The sow thistles are short before blooming, so it is high time to remove them. So said, so done. After 1,5 hours, with the children’s help in transporting the weeds away, all of the weeds are removed. Not all weeds came with there roots out, so these will grow back soon, but then I will just remove them again.

What I have noticed is that the potato plants in between the weeds have done well. They grew big and look healthy without any pest infestation.

Right behind this little area is a small area where there where hardly any weeds. In this spot the potato plants are very small and full of holes. Here the Colorado potato beetle has done its thing.

I do have to point out that we did not look for the beetle in this bed. It is interesting to see that the potato plants which are standing free have problems with pests and the potato plants which where hidden between the weeds are looking so much better and have no problems with pests.