soil building with weeds

[12540dumont]

I used raised beds (and a BCS). I often mix 2 plants in a bed. Beds come in and beds go out. As in something planted in garlic in October must be replanted to something else in June or July when the garlic is harvested. When I plant corn I have to combine 2 beds together and eliminate a path.

When I open a new area on the farm, I'm planting into pasture that has been farmed, not to my liking. Basically, my brother has been selling the hay off the farm for 10 years. My thought is with it he has sold the soil fertility as well.

When I plant corn in a "New area" I always get corn smut, even if I space the corn correctly. One reason is that fellow who grows hay uses anhydrous to fertilize with. This gives me field bindweed, prostate knotweed, fox tail, as well as corn earworm. So before I plant in this area I have to add high calcium lime and compost to make life tough on these weeds. But then I get others. Now, if I can get just enough chicory in the corn, the corn grows great.

It takes me about 3 years to bring a new area into suitable production. Once I start getting good brix readings, I know the soil is looking good. My soil is very deplete of calcium. The farmer who originally started farming here planted mustard. The deep roots of mustard bring up calcium. But as he had orchard, it was easy to keep mustard between the trees. The mustard was taller than me!

1 of the most virulent weeds in the Southeast is Kudzu. It curtails erosion by growing rampantly on acid clay soils, and in time it leaves it rich and mellow.

Ragweed often indicates that you don't have enough copper in your soil and eventually it will bring it up, but it may take a long time.. achoo.

I do think weeds can build soil, and I know that we hardly know anything really about soil. It's complicated! I think it's best to "Control" weeds, not eliminate them. I have never spent enough time learning about weeds.

Attachments:

[greenfinger]

that fellow who grows hay uses anhydrous to fertilize with. This gives me field bindweed, prostate knotweed, fox tail, as well as corn earworm.

The above mentioned book, suggests using bindweed as a ground cover in corn. Though not having experienced bindweed, it may sound more attractive to me than to you.


1 of the most virulent weeds in the Southeast is Kudzu

Lunch! Kudzu root cooked like potatoes, flowers as fritters, fruit as jam! Or so my books tell me. I have to drive a few miles before the vines will consume my car.

[steev]

Yeah, well, bindweed is never going to provide your lunch, only strangle the plants you want.

[ottawagardener]

I've heard tell of this foe bindweed. Next heard of it being used as a mulch. Which book was that?

[MikeH]

Not exactly as a mulch. Sounds more like fodder.

Once, while in Europe, traveling through rural Bavaria, I came upon a man who was cutting green weeds from the roadside, apparently to mix with the manure sweepings which he was also gathering from the road. Among his weeds were nettles, lamb's quarter, thistles, mallow, and bindweed.

and

American farmers will probably be more than a little surprised to learn, for instance, that the detested bindweed, when cured into hay, gave returns from dairy cows considerably above either alfalfa or clover. Many weed experiments were carried on at one of England's leading experiment stations, where the weeds, of course, were under control.

and

The searching English scientists also discovered that many other weeds needed only a bit of special treatment to bring out their value as food for livestock. The rough-leaf pigweed was found to make excellent hay. Pigweed hay and thistle hay brought returns only slightly below those received from bindweed hay.

and

And do not forget that the annual wild morning-glory (ipomoea) is not a bindweed (convolvulus), though the two are relatives. The annual morning-glory, another native American, is really not a pernicious weed. While these morning-glories should perhaps not be planted in fields that are regularly cropped, if they move in of their own accord they should be controlled and thus forced to serve as a valuable mother weed. And morning-glories will do a good job on extremely poor land; that is, land that is suffering from a lack of soil fiber. Many farmers know that corn and these morning-glories get along well together.

[oxbowfarm]

I would hesitate to experiment with bindweed. It develops a perennial tuber that is way way down there. The seed is viable for 50 years !

As far as making hay, I don't doubt the nutritional numbers but how would you cut it? It grows into this giant tangled mat, the plants you've cut are still tied to plants you haven't. Can't see scything it or using a sickle bar.

[olddog]

yes, the bindweed, Convolvus arvensis is infamous here, when you till you spread it, and chop the root/rhizome into small pieces, and each one grows a new plant!
it is so difficult to keep under control, without pesticides, if you are on a tilling regimen, though I have never grown it with corn.
(just personal experience).

[steev]

Bindweed and puncture vine are the two weeds that I always try to rip out on sight.

[Drahkk]

Feb 2, 2013 15:08:42 GMT -5 greenfinger said:

1 of the most virulent weeds in the Southeast is Kudzu

Lunch! Kudzu root cooked like potatoes, flowers as fritters, fruit as jam! Or so my books tell me. I have to drive a few miles before the vines will consume my car.

I only have to walk a hundred yards or so to where the western edge of Mr Prince's property is bordered by a levee covered in the stuff. I know I'm going to have to spray it, slash and burn it, disc it under, etc., etc., to keep it from swallowing the garden.

Many cannibal tribes believe in consuming one's enemies to learn their secrets. You have recipes? Please link or share! I've seen a couple for the young leaves or flowers, but that's about it.

MB

[blueadzuki]

Feb 2, 2013 15:08:42 GMT -5 greenfinger said:

1 of the most virulent weeds in the Southeast is Kudzu

Lunch! Kudzu root cooked like potatoes, flowers as fritters, fruit as jam! Or so my books tell me. I have to drive a few miles before the vines will consume my car.

I'm not sure I'd trust the last bit. Kudzu pods are covered with urticating (irritating) hairs, and mature seed is poisonous. Even if there is a way around this (say, scading the hairs off) kudzu pods are basically bean pods; I have difficulty beliveing that they would make a jam anyone would find attractive (I am aware there are legumes whose pods are sweet enough to make a jam, like Inga (Ice cream bean) but those are mostly tropical. Additionally, finding fruit might be a challenge. Kudzu tends to only pod significantly in marginal areas, where the plant is under a lot of stress. The kudzu near me (which is on the edge of the range) pods copiously, but according to most of the people I know in the south, deep in it's secure heartland, kudzu often produces no pods at all Just as well, kudzu seed is probably one of the few things harder to get rid of than kudzu plants (the seedlings arent all that strong but the seed can stay dormant in the ground for decades.)

[blueadzuki]

As for me, there are a few weeds I consciously sow in my garden (and I am not incuding all of the things I sow to find out what they are, we're talking about things I can identify) First and foremost are the vetches. The Indian coriander I work with has two species of vetch in it (actually it has many, but only two are common enough to be contemplatable as being used as a sowing crop). I don't sow the one that comes still in the pods (which I think is Vicia hirsuta, though the flower arrangement seems a bit different). But the other (which is very clearly V. sativa, I sow happily. I'll probably supplement these with others as soon as any seeds I have found have had a year in a tub to confirm they aren't something that will get out of control (I want no V.villosa in my garden, it is too hard to control.) There is also a cocktail of varios alfalfas, bush clovers etc. I sometimes add, though those tend to be a little too sparse to add meaningfully to the garden.

[greenfinger]

Many cannibal tribes believe in consuming one's enemies to learn their secrets. You have recipes? Please link or share! I've seen a couple for the young leaves or flowers, but that's about it.

Read more: alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=soilbuilding&action=display&thread=7089&page=4#ixzz2LGI1YhN0

A great article on eating kudzu. Recipes at bottom of article.
www.eattheweeds.com/kudzu-pueraria-montana-var-lobata-fried-2/

I'm not sure I'd trust the last bit. Kudzu pods are covered with urticating (irritating) hairs, and mature seed is poisonous. Even if there is a way around this (say, scading the hairs off) kudzu pods are basically bean pods; I have difficulty beliveing that they would make a jam anyone would find attractive

Read more: alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=soilbuilding&action=display&thread=7089&page=4#ixzz2LGIWewZg

Ummm... Sorry folks, just one more example of the importance of personal research. Green Dean, in the above article, also lists the seeds as poisonous. I had read elsewhere on the net of making jelly and assumed the plant make a berry. The article above has a recipe making jelly out of the BLOSSOMS.

[olifromnorth]

I just put a message here because i would like to find russian comfrey bocking 14. I just read about it and i learn that kind of comfrey dont do seed what i can find a must . So i would like to know if somebody, preferably in canada, and  a must if it is in Quebec. The amout i want its a of to plant 40 to 60 plant to plant during the summer

Thanks !

[starry]

You can order it from Richter's Herbs

www.richters.com

Jan 5, 2014 14:10:52 GMT -5 olifromnorth said:

I just put a message here because i would like to find russian comfrey bocking 14. I just read about it and i learn that kind of comfrey dont do seed what i can find a must . So i would like to know if somebody, preferably in canada, and  a must if it is in Quebec. The amout i want its a of to plant 40 to 60 plant to plant during the summer

Thanks !

[richardw]

Ive got the Russian comfrey in my orchard.If you do get some the best way to increase the number of plants is when your plant is well established is cover with a deep layer of compost,it will grow up through it and send out roots through the compost,then its just a matter of cutting off at soil level,cut the leaves off and plant out.