A stale seedbed is one that has been about for a bit, so that there has beenplenty of time for weed seeds to germinate.
The seedbed is prepared so that the soil is in fine crumbs. This is called a tilthe. If the seedbed is left, weed seeds will germinate.
weeds-in-stale-seedbed1
These weed seedlings can be removed when they are tiny, by raking thesoil. The roots will be pulled out of the soil, and if left on top so they will die.
stale-seedbed-half-raked1
The seedbed should be raked whenever the weeds emerge. The longer thisgoes on, the more weed numbers will be reduced, and the better the staleseedbed will be. It is much easier to produce a stale seedbed in thegarden if the bed can be covered with some sort of polythene to keep it dry- such as a polytunnel.
The soil needs to be dry:
* to allow the rake to be pulled easily through the soil
* for the rake to pull the seedlings out
* to allow the roots of the weed seedlings to dry out & die
This stale seedbed will make a perfect environment for carrot seeds to be sown in.
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