Universal Garden Smackdown
Oct. 5th, 2011 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halifaxearthtech(posted September)
The universe just smacked me down big time and I've had a demoralizing morning.
Last winter around November I got together with a couple of volunteers and we removed a lot of goutweed from the strawberry patch of Studley Garden. It is now August of the year after and I returned from a trip away to find the patch not, as I had hoped, taken over by strawberries but that the goutweed had returned, along with rampant blackberries and an abundance of sow thistle (sonchus).
Clearly the land is decrying the indecent stripping of her surface. I also committed a type-1 error in a) not covering the land immediately with something else (mulch or vegetation) and b) not removing goutweed at the time of year that the strawberries send out runners (July/august).
I chopped and dropped the sow thistle, and am determined to plant white clover when the weather gets less murderously hot and dry and more cool and wet and appropriate for planting. I will also move strawberries from another row in which I intend to make some keyhole paths, and put those strawberries where the goutweed is now. The land is also saying it wants an overstory for the raspberries. Some shade might also beat back the strawberries a bit, which send out runners vigorously. Unfortunately we can't use the blackberries that are there now because of concerns that it will demolish the stone fence.
The patch in question is located at the bottom of the garden, topographically, and something to capture nutrient runoff would be beneficial. Root crops might disturb the strawberries too much in their harvesting but I was thinking of interplanting Jerusalem artichoke and hog peanut. The first as an overstory and the second to provide nitrogen as well as a source of starch. I am also thinking of interplanting Hazel, blueberry and having a hedge of dwarf Siberian stone pine along the wall (which the blueberry would like, since they acidify the soil). At the very least the space should be broken up with paths so as to focus attention.
The garden also has a problem with members leaving in July. They don't pay attention to their own rows let alone the common areas, as a general rule (there are some exceptions). I have come to the determination that I should at least make the common areas as self-managing as possible, and experiment my way toward a calorie positive garden. Then people can just pay attention to their rows of annuals. The owners of this shared backyard are also prickly and I am thinking of ways to honourably divest myself of being there. Perhaps the price of admission for this is to let them pave over half the garden with lawn as they would like.
Aesthetic is also important in this garden (I just wrote "impotent), which means that "weeds" have to be removed from sight and not just made obsolete by an evolution of the system.
Check out this website:
www.primalseeds.org/weeds.htm
sow thistle: fodder for ruminants, rabbits. Edible to humans raw or cooked. They are zealously consumed by the Maori. They absorb a large amount of nitrogen (indicator of nitrates? Makes sense as we added a lot of compost to that soil). Animals will prefer this nutritious plant to grass. It does not have an obvious taproot. it is unresponsive to herbicide. It is a good sacrificial plant for aphids and encourages aphid predator the hoverfly (indicative of poor soil fungi?). It grows in pH of 6 to 8 which means our soil is at the very least not toxically acidic. - Wikipedia
Seeds die in the soil after one year. Including root crops in the rotation should help to deplete the seed bank. -gardenorganic.org.uk
The universe just smacked me down big time and I've had a demoralizing morning.
Last winter around November I got together with a couple of volunteers and we removed a lot of goutweed from the strawberry patch of Studley Garden. It is now August of the year after and I returned from a trip away to find the patch not, as I had hoped, taken over by strawberries but that the goutweed had returned, along with rampant blackberries and an abundance of sow thistle (sonchus).
Clearly the land is decrying the indecent stripping of her surface. I also committed a type-1 error in a) not covering the land immediately with something else (mulch or vegetation) and b) not removing goutweed at the time of year that the strawberries send out runners (July/august).
I chopped and dropped the sow thistle, and am determined to plant white clover when the weather gets less murderously hot and dry and more cool and wet and appropriate for planting. I will also move strawberries from another row in which I intend to make some keyhole paths, and put those strawberries where the goutweed is now. The land is also saying it wants an overstory for the raspberries. Some shade might also beat back the strawberries a bit, which send out runners vigorously. Unfortunately we can't use the blackberries that are there now because of concerns that it will demolish the stone fence.
The patch in question is located at the bottom of the garden, topographically, and something to capture nutrient runoff would be beneficial. Root crops might disturb the strawberries too much in their harvesting but I was thinking of interplanting Jerusalem artichoke and hog peanut. The first as an overstory and the second to provide nitrogen as well as a source of starch. I am also thinking of interplanting Hazel, blueberry and having a hedge of dwarf Siberian stone pine along the wall (which the blueberry would like, since they acidify the soil). At the very least the space should be broken up with paths so as to focus attention.
The garden also has a problem with members leaving in July. They don't pay attention to their own rows let alone the common areas, as a general rule (there are some exceptions). I have come to the determination that I should at least make the common areas as self-managing as possible, and experiment my way toward a calorie positive garden. Then people can just pay attention to their rows of annuals. The owners of this shared backyard are also prickly and I am thinking of ways to honourably divest myself of being there. Perhaps the price of admission for this is to let them pave over half the garden with lawn as they would like.
Aesthetic is also important in this garden (I just wrote "impotent), which means that "weeds" have to be removed from sight and not just made obsolete by an evolution of the system.
Check out this website:
www.primalseeds.org/weeds.htm
sow thistle: fodder for ruminants, rabbits. Edible to humans raw or cooked. They are zealously consumed by the Maori. They absorb a large amount of nitrogen (indicator of nitrates? Makes sense as we added a lot of compost to that soil). Animals will prefer this nutritious plant to grass. It does not have an obvious taproot. it is unresponsive to herbicide. It is a good sacrificial plant for aphids and encourages aphid predator the hoverfly (indicative of poor soil fungi?). It grows in pH of 6 to 8 which means our soil is at the very least not toxically acidic. - Wikipedia
Seeds die in the soil after one year. Including root crops in the rotation should help to deplete the seed bank. -gardenorganic.org.uk
