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Post by Walk on Jul 23, 2011 9:11:41 GMT -5
Hi Seedywen,
We mulch our garlic with all of the bean and pea pods from our dry legume crops. We grow around 100-150 pounds per year so there are several bushels of pods, enough for our 2'x20' bed of garlics spread a few inches thick. They don't pack down too severely over the winter so the garlic can get through in the spring. No weeds either. Our garlic bed is in a 4 bed/4 year rotation with strawberries. When the garlic comes out, berry plants are set under shade cover down the middle of the bed. After the 3rd year of berry production, a bed is turned over, buckwheat is sown, and in the fall garlic gets planted there. This keeps the berries rejuvenated and helps eliminate perennial weeds. The central path in that area has black medic and the side path is white clover. The berries creep into the path too.
As for pathways, we used to wheel hoe them until we gave up and started being selective about the weeds. In some areas, we planted white clover which is now so thick that nothing else comes up. In other areas, we let the creeping charlie, purslane, plantain, chickweed, dandelions make a ground cover which we mow occasionally. We hand pull or spot hoe all quack grass, other grasses, tall annuals like pig weed and lambsquarter, and really go after any bindweed or thistles. The creeping charlie makes the most impenetrable path cover over all. It's only downside is that it wants to creep into the beds. So we hoe the bed edges a couple of time a season to keep it in bounds. It's a great bumble bee food early in the year when not much else is ready for bee forage. We're working on getting it established throughout the garden as it makes such a great living carpet for our location.
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Post by seedywen on Jul 24, 2011 9:44:36 GMT -5
Walk, I like how your post describes using weeds selectively as cover crops. Letting certain weeds flourish while pulling up others regularly that might take over. Get weeds 'working' for the gardener. And not so much the other way around  One of the helpful benefits to being a dedicated seed-saver, IMO is with the abundance of seed plus, at least in my garden plus the self-sowing of many herbs/vegetables/flowers, over time, many of the dominate weeds are plants, gardeners want to grow anyway! I especially like fast growing, leafy succulent plants like large poppies, borage etc. that seed seed, occupy bare soil for a time while the other planted crops get started. Yet they are easy to pull out and compost. Much as I would like to just lay the plants down between the planted rows, often have to cart away to the compost bins, because this clay based soil plus heavy rains often help pulled plants, just reroot themselves. And then in a week, it's as if you never weeded at all! This farm came overridden with creeping charlie to the effect that it crowded out almost all orchard grasses and even other weeds except thistles. So these two weeds get pulled continually whenever they make a reappearance. So does buttercup. On the other hand lambs-quarters, chickweed etc. are still welcome as I let them thrive for either the free ranging chickens and ducks or alternately 'weeded' and giving to them as feed. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 24, 2011 12:09:24 GMT -5
Much as I would like to just lay the plants down between the planted rows, often have to cart away to the compost bins, because this clay based soil plus heavy rains often help pulled plants, just reroot themselves. And then in a week, it's as if you never weeded at all! When I have allowed plants to grow too large, and have to pull them, I orient them all in the same direction in the row with the roots facing away from me, and the tops facing towards what I haven't weeded yet. That means that the roots of newly pulled plants are placed on top of the stems from previously pulled plants, isolating them from the soil. That doesn't work very well with purslane which readily sends down roots from any part of the plant, but in my garden it works with every other species. |
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Post by davida on Oct 8, 2012 21:20:45 GMT -5
I was visiting with some farm hands planting winter wheat last week. They were mixing "Nitro" radishes with the wheat. They said that the radishes get 2 or 3 feet long, die at freeze and decompose by the spring to feed the wheat and loosen the "no till" soil. Some research of the supplier at www.tilthpro.com said "Tilth Pro NitroRadish is an Oregon grown Daikon Radish used for fall/winter cover crop. It provides many helpful benefits to the grower, the soil, and the environment. It germinates and grows quickly; has a large, deep penetrating tap root; dies over the winter (in cold climates); decomposes quickly; has high nutrient content, and contains bio-active plant chemicals. It has the ability to recycle nutrients which will improve your soil quality and economic crop production". Has anyone used this type of radish as a cover crop? Since I am working for a "no till" garden, the benefits seem substantial. And the tops and any of the radish above ground should make good chicken feed. David |
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 8, 2012 21:35:50 GMT -5
David, I think Joseph and I have both used Daikon Radish.
The chickens will scratch the tops, but not eat the roots. They grow incredibly long and thick here. (They look like a forearm...no kidding).
I read that anything like this can pull up nutrients from deep in the soil.
I didn't mean to use them as a cover crop. Just one got away from me and went to seed. Pretty soon they were in every path and 3 or 4 beds. We noticed that no other weeds came up where they were, so we left them until we were ready to plant. I had a weed free corn bed.
They are a fall planted radish, so if you're going to do it, get going. I'm out of daikon seed, so I'm going to use Vivid Choy this year. PM me if I haven't sent you some.
My chickens love love love purslane (and I like it too). I especially like the Golden Purslane that David sent me. Purslane is very cool, it's one of the only omega 3 plants out there.
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Post by steev on Oct 9, 2012 20:06:35 GMT -5
Purslane is good stuff. Where it early grows for me, if it has plenty of water and fertility, the leaves are the size of quarters; not an improved variety, just wild purslane.
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 9, 2012 20:12:17 GMT -5
So are you saying you eat it? My mom always wants me to eat it.
Cover crop for me this year is Non Dormant Alfalfa. If it grows ok this horrible fall it will make a nice mulch since it winter kills.
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Post by steev on Oct 10, 2012 10:49:44 GMT -5
I eat it cooked as greens, sometimes a bit raw in salad.
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Post by synergy on Oct 10, 2012 12:34:49 GMT -5
I eat chickweed as a green, say added to salad or sandwiches. It is the first green I have in my garden. Has anyone used crimson clover as a ground cover?
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Post by steev on Oct 10, 2012 20:33:59 GMT -5
Chickweed has always seemed too insubstancial for "greens", to me ( I must stipulate that to me, it ain't greens 'less it's cooked ); not bad raw though, as you mention; any profit from weeding is a good thing.
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Post by MikeH on Oct 31, 2013 4:00:38 GMT -5
This year we experimented with bringing some of our wild pasture into production without rototilling and without using a bottom layer of cardboard - portageperennials.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/wild-pasture-cultivation-and-perennial-grains/. The inoculated peas did really well at suppressing early growth. After I chopped-and-dropped it with a scythe just as it was coming into flower in order to maximize the nitrogen nodules, I seeded buckwheat. I wasn't sure how it would do with the pea material on the soil but it did fine. Just as it was starting to set seed, I scythed it down and seeded Daikon radish. It seemed slow at first but then took off and choked out everything. I pulled one the other day. It broke off at the 10" mark and was over an inch in diameter at that point. I'm very pleased with the results. I seeded a couple of areas of peas and buckwheat for seed production for next year and have a goodly amount of both. I'll dig up a couple of the radishes to keep in sand over the winter and then plant them out for seed next year. We're going to use this combination in our raised beds to grow fertility without composting or deep digging. The effort involved is minimal and the results are very good. Saving a bit of seed gives us a complete system. We had seeded a section of one our raised beds with buckwheat and oats which gave fantastic weed suppression. I was planning to chop and drop before seed set and then cover with leave/grass mulch for the winter. Joyce needed a bit more space for some of her garlic so I suggested that she use that bed. She was about to pull out the buckwheat and oat roots but I talk her into leaving them and planting into them. She's not convinced. Me? I don't know. If she gets a garlic crop there that is more or less the same as elsewhere, then we'll start to leave the roots in the soil to decompose. Less work and better for the soil. |
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Post by nicollas on Oct 31, 2013 9:29:11 GMT -5
Isnt too hard to get rid of the daikon ? Or do you plan to keep it ?
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Post by MikeH on Oct 31, 2013 15:05:19 GMT -5
Here Daikon radish winter kills and rots in the ground.
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Post by raymondo on Oct 31, 2013 15:43:48 GMT -5
Mike, are you trying to clear out the pasture grasses by suppressing their growth or are you just trying to improve soil structure and fertility in the pasture?
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Post by MikeH on Nov 2, 2013 4:05:57 GMT -5
Yes and yes. It's former pasture with the topsoil scraped off. Being severely disturbed land, it was quickly populated with thistle, twitch grass, ragweed, dock, lambs quarters, etc. Disturbing the dormant seed bank is not a good idea unless you want to go down the road of tilling and spraying and tilling and spraying until the seeds down to the depth of the tiller are gone.
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