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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 3, 2009 8:15:18 GMT -5
While attending the Organic Growers of Ontario Eco Farm Day 2009, I heard a talk by Hida Manns with the fancy title of H. Ecological equilibrium: balancing weeds, insects and economics. I prefer to call it 'Benefits of a Weedy Vegetable Garden.' I placed this post here because she uses a no-till method. Let me give you a synopsis of what I understood her technique to be. She raises goats so when she wants to start a vegetable bed, she takes their partially decomposed bedding that has been hanging in a barn over winter and then some time in the spring and lays it on a area of sod that she wants to convert (she recommends fall as the best time to start and so do I if you want to kill sod before planting). This is laid thickly to exclude light and inhibit weed growth through the mulch. In between the vegetable beds or paths, she lets the weeds grow. Yup. She lets the weeds grow. To manage the height of the weeds and presumedly lower light competition, she uses a sickle to keep them about 6 inches high. Pictures of her garden bed show that she isn't too concerned about the weeds that occasionally break through the mulched beds either. She has noticed that after several years of this there is a progression away from annual weeds to more perennial types. Her soil is sandy and she finds that it is greatly approved. All the things you usually hear about no-till techniques such as better water retention AND drainage due in both cases to the addition of organic matter, better ecological soil health and surpressed weed growth apply. She is a researcher so I'm presuming the results are based on studies (and she showed us some studies) that disease and pests damage are lower in these crops and compared to regular bare dirt methods, there is no difference in yield. So though traditional techniques may have less weeds and therefore growth competition, disease and pests losses were higher. Other than improving soil tilth, the weedy growth creates a diverse habitat for all sorts of critters and raises a whole bunch of interesting questions for me. (Maybe this should have gone into the general gardening section?) 1. How does this affect rotation as some of the 'weeds' will be hosts for some diseases? Do they act as alterative, perhaps even preferred victems of these pests and diseases - trap crops. 2. Would strip planting of wildlife meadows around or through a large vegetable garden act in a similar way. How about a hedgerow or meadow beside the field? 3. How about interplanting vegetables in a more complex way so that similar plants are not right beside each other (This presents problems for rotation)? A couple comments: 1. Care would have to be taken when saving seeds that wild relatives are not mixing genetics unless that was desired. 2. Why keep to 6 inches. Some of the benefits of these plants would be as providing pollen. Some potential beneficial plants are at greater heights when flowering so a nearby meadow would seem like a good idea. 3. I suspect that sometimes the benefit to having a weedy garden is that the pests can't find the vegetables in admist the pleasant chaos. Can this be replicated in another way? 4. How about determining what is beneficial about the weeds and substituing less useful species for more useful species with comparable charateristis? 5. So for those of you with as much grass as cabbage, remember, you're participating in experimental research: ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) ;D More thoughts? (Yup, this is more than just soil building)
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Post by ceara on Mar 3, 2009 12:43:21 GMT -5
I don't know why, but I've never really liked regimental rows of vegetables. It just seemed it was like opening up a buffet for all sorts of critters. But of course it was always what my parents did. I can only imagine it from a bug's point of view. Some can see their desired meal and others can "smell" it. Once they get it on their radar they zoom in and have a grand time. Sometimes it seems in a blink of an eye the cabbage loopers are happy making lace in leaves and the potato bugs are munching away. So I let some things run rampant in my gardens. Something that looks like wild clover with yellow flowers, self-seeded tiny Chamomile, Johnny Jump Ups, Bachelor's Buttons and Calendula. Once I thought all those Johnny Jump Ups were too much and I removed them and then the other plants didn't fare as well. Then I discovered British cottage gardens and began to study. This may not be entirely historically accurate but it seems to work. They intensively planted vegetables with flowers and when some vegetables were done they had plenty more on hand to fill in blanks. But of course compost or well rotted manure was added before planting the next crop or flower filler to maintain soil fertility. This was done in such a way as to prevent bare soil from showing. Some weeds didn't stand a chance because they couldn't get enough sun to cause trouble. With a jumbled garden like that, the bugs that zone in either through sight or scent, they get confused and are not as likely to devour plants as much. Then I recently learned about a new craze to build "bug hotels." At an out-of-the-way place in the garden, stack up old logs, bits of hollow stems, drilled pieces of wood, paper egg cartons, maybe even some broken bricks. Apparently the concept is to provide a nice shelter for beneficial bugs to live and be near the garden to help control other bugs. www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2005/08/11/110805_bug_hotel_feature.shtmlSo I don't know if that helps this conversation, but there is something to what that woman shared, even if it's just with common weeds. I wonder how she deals with the root runner weeds. It's a pain sometimes to lift a weed only to find it's got lots of clones joined by roots. lol
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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 3, 2009 13:03:15 GMT -5
I think she is quite content with all weeds including root runner. Thistle was mentioned but she didn't have much of a thistle problem she said in her garden. I didn't ask her if she had something like oh bishop's weed to content with ... I presume not as these were common weeds by the looks of it. Her *insight* is not to weed but to manage the weeds by keeping them short or smothering with mulch - that's it!
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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 3, 2009 13:04:02 GMT -5
Forgot to add, she had a lot of grassy weeds, certainly some were the running type.
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Post by grunt on Mar 3, 2009 14:08:14 GMT -5
Check out our albums at picasaweb.google.ca/TVgruntI leave the grass in the pathways and have an occasionally mowed field next to the garden. I keep the grass watered and mowed, and use the clippings as mulch in the beds. Leaving a narrow bare soil trench on the borders of the beds helps reduce the intrusion of runner roots from the pathways into the beds, and keeping the pathways well watered reduces damage from flea beetles and other insects. My worst insect problems come from grasshoppers that thrive in the unwatered lot next door, or flea beetles if I let the pathways get too dry, and they aren't that bad. I have a living windbreak row that can be used by what ever insects as a holding area, and leave the grass taller around the bases of what grows there. I even plant some things between the permanent members of the wind break row. Cheers
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Post by bunkie on Mar 3, 2009 15:38:41 GMT -5
we use a good 6 inches of goat straw as mulch around our veggies too. i've found that the weeds that grow through it are very scraggly and pull out easily.
this year we let the weeds grow in our paths, and i mowed the weeds down with my battery weedeater every now and then when they got hard to walk through. it kind of created a nice gree living path to walk on. helped with the moisture also.
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Post by canadamike on Mar 3, 2009 19:00:55 GMT -5
To a certain extent, I never understood our obsession with ''weeds''. I find them the cheapest source of carbon and organic material.
And I always had a huge laugh at the people saying ''don't let them go to seeds or you'll have weeds forever in your garden''.
One way or the other, we will always have them anyway. There are weed seeds in any soil for the next 3 gazillions years, and we are not even counting the ones brought up by wind, birds, ourselves and so on...
My hoe does not see the difference between or or two or ten small weed plants. When I hoe I hoe square footage, so to say... and I let them grow in between rows and on the edges and anywhere else. I lightly turn them under when I have the time or pile them on the compost. In a couple of places, I put wood chip in rows because as soon as it rains it is too muddy, that is the only reason.
When you look at the melon trial pictures, next summer, you will see the long plastic covered beds in the beginning, with beautiful brown soils in the rows. As the season will progress, you will notivce lots of weeds in the rows. By harvest time, the melons will not be laying on bare grown, quite far from it. And that is quite fine with me, less splashing of water means less diseases usually, and less muddy shoes anyway...
And I forgot to say, I have this idea of naming the farm ''Adventice'' the poetic and also very accurate name for weeds. It refers to their colonisation role on bare soil...they come in ''advance'' of bigger plants like trees,
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Post by stevil on Mar 6, 2009 12:33:31 GMT -5
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Post by canadamike on Mar 6, 2009 20:08:58 GMT -5
I would like to point out that each strawberry season, I go to my friend jean-Yves to pick a few baskets, and I always choose the ones growing close to thistle or amidst it. It hurts sometimes but they are much sweeter and flavorful.
I told that to Jean-Yves a couple of years ago and he told me it was true, he had noticed it himslef.
I always go for the weedy spots for the best berries.
On the other hand, this ''basil improves tomatoes flavor'' will need more convincing, I have noticed nothing yet.
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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 6, 2009 23:03:10 GMT -5
Strawberries and thistle huh? Isn't there a thistle that La societe des plantes sells? It has an edible root. Anyhow, I planned on growing it after I get my bit of land.
Thanks for the pictures Stephen. I was wondering about selective weeding or intentional seeding of beneficials between rows. I do selectively weed my garden but I would love to know more about how to best handle this.
As it is the fact that her weedy vegetable patch and installation of vegetable rows in thick bedding mulch should make many people feel less daunted about starting a vegetable patch on raw sod.
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Post by flowerpower on Mar 7, 2009 6:29:46 GMT -5
The concept of using hay/straw for a no-till garden is not new. Ruth stout wrote her books in the 60's. I have been doing this for 10 yrs. I do leave a good amt of "weeds" in my garden. The one thing I will pull out is grass, if it has underground runners. But I will leave thistle, clover, st johnswort and even a few dandelions.
I will use the goats' spoiled hay as mulch for veggies. But it does not need to be overwintered. Goat, sheep, and bunny poop can be used fresh.
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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 7, 2009 9:08:44 GMT -5
Yes, I've read Stout's book. This feels different though as she is not concerned about the weeds even though I'm sure she borrowed her ideas of thick hay mulching from Stout and ilk (lasagna garden etc...) Having said, that actually, I know from personal experience how easy it is to recreate the wheel by 'discovering' gardening technqiues that were already well established.
What intrigues me is the fact that she 'manages' the weeds. Actually she most commonly refers to them as 'grasses' as that's what most of her weeds appeared to be over time: perennial grasses rather than weeds. I think it's a bit of a hybrid of techniques.
She's also interested in growing in rotation and using the previous crop as a mulch cover for the next in a large agricultural setting but she didn't go into as much detail on that (or I didn't pay enough attention?). Anyhow, once again though leaving and planting into field stubble is not new, again this felt how shall I put ideologically different?
I'm thinking of putting together a wildflower and edible 'weed' mix for experiments. Any suggestions guys?
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Post by bunkie on Mar 7, 2009 11:36:09 GMT -5
sounds like a fascinating experiment telsing...edible flowers maybe...
i was just remembering reading many many years ago about a man, oriental i think, who used to dig holes in a patch of weeds/natural grasses, etc... and plant his veggie/fruit/herb transplants in the holes. he didn't disturb any of the area except to plant his seedlings.
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Post by canadamike on Mar 7, 2009 16:08:14 GMT -5
We grow corn in weeds. Comes times to harvest, chenopodium album and hairy vetch and all sorts of other plants are waist high. The corn does not seem to be bothered a bit. We seed at 2-3 inches and get a full crop.
We are privileged with naturally very fertile clay, APPARENTLY THE CANADIAN AVERAGE IS 2.5 TONS OF CORN/ACRE, WE ARE AROUND 4-4.5 HERE.
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Post by grungy on Mar 7, 2009 17:00:15 GMT -5
Taking it from farmers that have tried no-till, it works good on sandy soil, but clay is a different story. First year is great results after that productivity keeps decreasing after the weeds manage to take over the nutrients and water that is available. (I wished it did work as weeding isn't one of my favorite gardening activities. Please note - we mulch heavily so weeding only occurs once a year, just before planting. And yes we have sandy soil that is slowly being enriched over time by turning in our mulch every year.
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