Weeds « The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

September 12, 2019

Growing buckwheat to improve your garden

Filed under: Cover crops,Weeds — Tags: bees and buckwheat, buckwheat, buckwheat honey, cover crop, planting buckwheat, pollinators, soil improvement, till, till cover crop, weed control — bob @ 3:56 pm

I’m a big fan of cover crops both on the farm and in the garden. Cover crops are not harvested, instead they’re used for other purposes such as preventing erosion or improving soil tilth.

One of my favorite cover crops is buckwheat, the same plant that gives us grain for buckwheat pancakes. It is very fast growing, so fast in fact, that it will beat out most weeds in a race to the finish.

For use as a cover crop, buckwheat can be planted any time during the growing season. If planted early, it will mature quick enough that you’ll be able to till it into the soil and grow a second crop if need be. I often grow a late crop of buckwheat that gets tilled into the soil. I then follow that with a crop of winter rye. Growing buckwheat as a grain to harvest is a different story.

This time of the year I’m growing buckwheat for a few reasons. First, it makes a fine placeholder in the garden, a kind of living mulch. If I have a large spot that is not going to be planted, I’ll sow it with buckwheat. It keeps the area from being overrun with weeds by overpowering and smothering them.

Buckwheat helps maintain soil fertility. While it grows, it picks up and holds minerals in its leaves, stems and roots. Later, when the plant is eventually tilled into the soil, those minerals will be released back into the soil for the next crop to use. Plus, plenty of valuable organic material from the roots and tops will improve topsoil.

Buckwheat’s flowers produce an enormous amount of nectar making it a valuable plant for honeybees and other pollinating insects. For example, an acre of buckwheat can provide enough nectar to allow honeybees to produce as much as 150 pounds of honey. Less than a month after planting, buckwheat will begin to flower and not long after, seeds will appear. It will continue producing flowers and seeds until frost. Its flowering habit provides honeybees with a source of food when few other plants are flowering.

Buckwheat produces nectar only in the morning, you won’t see bees in your buckwheat during the afternoon.

Seeds are available online and at rural farm supply stores. Plant buckwheat by scattering the seeds over the surface of a freshly tilled area so that the seeds end up being around three or four inches apart. Then rake the area to cover the seeds with soil.

Buckwheat can re-seed itself and sometimes become a minor annoyance the following year. If you find that’s the case in your garden, mow or till it before it produces too many seeds.

Bob

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September 5, 2019

Be careful not to introduce invasive plants into your garden

Filed under: Flowers,Invasive plants,Invasive species,Weeds — Tags: cow dipper, crow dipper, invasive plant, jack-in-the-pulpit, Pinellia, voodoo lily — bob @ 3:50 pm

It’s surprisingly easy to introduce an invasive plant into your garden. It often happens when gardeners share plants with one another.

We have a few examples of that happening in our garden. One of those is Pinellia tripartita a plant native to China and Japan. I’ve heard it called Japanese jack-in-the-pulpit, although there’s another plant goes by the same name. Crow dipper is another name. One website refers to it as green dragon, another calls it voodoo lily. Botanically speaking, it’s closely related to our native jack-in-the-pulpit.

Pinellia is a smallish plant only eight to twelve inches tall and can grow in a variety of environments as long as the soil is well-drained. In our garden it is growing as a weed in full sun. Actually, it is growing in the shade of taller sun-loving plants, it is flourishing under the peonies that we brought in from another garden.

It was present as a persistent weed in that original garden too. We thought we were very careful to remove any trace of the Pinellia when we dug the peonies – apparently that was not the case. Now six years later we are still fighting it.

Unlike the other weeds we’ve accidentally brought in, these we have been able to keep confined to one relatively small spot in our garden.

Pinellia is very well adapted for reproducing itself and is quite competitive growing among other plants. It produces both tubers and numerous seeds, making it doubly sure it will reproduce one way or another.

You can see the small tuber growing on the root. Each piece of plant will have at least one.

This past week we re-dug the peonies along with the infested soil they were growing in. The peonies we saved and replanted; the soil we bagged up and set it out for disposal in the landfill. Home composting will not destroy all of the seeds or tubers.

In some parts of the country people are planting it as an ornamental, it really is an unusual looking plant. Either it behaves itself in certain climates or it hasn’t become a big enough problem in those areas. People on gardening chat sites marvel how well it spreads without any effort on their part. In some states it is officially classified as a noxious weed.

Even though you can find reputable plant sources online extolling its virtues, I highly recommend against planting it. People say, “I’m a conscientious gardener and would never let it get out of control”. That may be the case but what happens if you move and sell your house, would the new owners be as vigilant?

There is a purple cultivar of Pinellia tripartita that is supposed to be non-invasive, I would never take a chance on that one either.

Bob

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August 22, 2019

Purslane in the garden, friend or foe?

Filed under: Invasive plants,Vegetables,Weeds — Tags: edible garden weed, edible weeds, edible wild plant, purslane, pursley, puslley, red root — bob @ 10:00 am

Returning to one of my gardens after being away for a week, I noticed there were a lot of weeds that had spread over the garden. I thoroughly hoed the garden before I went away the previous week but I didn’t have time to rake up the cut and dislodged weed stalks. Usually the hot August sun is enough to dry them up and finish them off. There were a couple of good thunderstorms that rolled through during my absence that dropped enough rain to keep the weed stalks moist.

Most of the weeds that got cut off by hoeing did die despite the rain. One notable exception was the purslane. It was present in fairly high numbers and the plants were small, but they did get hoed.

Purslane has succulent leaves that resist drought and desiccation. Small pieces of stems can take root and grow into full size plants. It also has a central taproot that, if cut but not removed, can rapidly regrow.

These cut pieces of purslane will root themselves if not removed from the garden.

In one area the purslane formed a nice mat devoid of other weeds. In that spot the other weeds died from the hoeing while the purslane was able to reestablish itself taking up all available growing space.

Purslane does not compete very much with most vegetable crops for water and nutrients. There has been some thought by researchers about the possibility of using purslane as an alternative to herbicides for some food crops. Because it is low growing and can form a dense mat, it is able to reduce the number of more aggressive weeds from getting started. I’m not inclined to experiment with that this year but I may devote a small plot next year to a purslane companion plant trial. Let me know in the comments if that would be something you’d like to see.

Very few other weeds were growing in this dense mat of purslane.

Purslane is considered a wholesome food in many cultures around the world. It was brought to this continent by Europeans over 500 years ago, back when they didn’t know about introducing alien plant species to a new area. As a result, you can find it in most farm fields, gardens and landscapes.

Cultivated varieties have been developed that grow upright and have much larger leaves. Seeds for those are available at many seed sellers. I’ve even seen seeds of the wild variety for sale on eBay and other sites. I don’t think that would be a very good idea since each purslane plant can produce hundreds of tiny seeds that can eventually become a problem. I may be willing to grow a cultivated variety just to try it out but not a wild plant that has the potential to turn into a weed in my garden.

Purslane leaves and stems are edible and quite tasty,

Lately I have started eating my wild purslane more regularly. In the past I’d nibble on a stem or two just for fun but now I’m including it in my diet more and more, especially since my lettuce is long gone. It is very nutritious, as are many other wild edibles. Along with high concentrations of the more common nutrients, very high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids are also present – five times more than spinach.

My favorite way to eat purslane is to add a few sprigs to my salad or put it in a sandwich. Both the leaves and stems are edible.

About three and a half ounces of fresh purslane constitutes one serving.

Bob

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August 15, 2019

Michigan monarch butterflies and milkweeds up north

Filed under: Butterflies,Insects,Weeds — Tags: milkweed, milkweed leaves, monarch butterfly, monarch larva, monarchs, purple milkweed — bob @ 10:13 am

We’ve been spending time in northeast Michigan on and off for the past month or so. In one particular location, I noticed more Monarch butterflies this year than in the past.

A couple of weeks ago there were at least a dozen Monarch adult females frantically flying around from plant to plant laying eggs on a colony of milkweed plants. That lasted for a couple of days and was still going on when we left for home.

We returned earlier this week expecting to find caterpillars all over the place. The plants were still there but there were no caterpillars to be found anywhere. The only difference was the plants had bloomed and the blossoms were quickly fading.

These are a different species of milkweed than we have at home. The purple flowers with their distinctive scent along with a purple mid-vein on the leaves, plus other traits, told us these were purple milkweed, Asclepias purpurascens. At our home in southeastern Michigan we have mostly common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca.

There are several species of milkweed. This is purple milkweed.

I’m not sure why no caterpillars developed on the purple milkweed plants. It could be that predators ate the eggs before they hatched or ate the small caterpillars just as they emerged from their eggs.

On the other hand, this past weekend in the Caseville area, our daughter Robin and her cousins saw tons of caterpillars on milkweeds. Each and every plant, even the yellowing ones, had at least two caterpillars, others had even more. They didn’t know what species of milkweed those were since the plants hadn’t started blossoming yet. Adult females were quite busy laying eggs there too.

With that many caterpillars you expect to see evidence of predators and they did. While admiring a caterpillar up close, out of nowhere a predatory wasp zoomed in and dive bombed it. The caterpillar fell from the plant and was writhing wildly on the ground. When the spasming ceased, the hikers returned him to his roost on the milkweed. The hikers didn’t know it at the time, but the caterpillar was already doomed. The wasp had laid its eggs inside the caterpillar’s body making a nursery for a new generation of wasps.

We did eventually find a caterpillar on the purple milkweeds in the northeast location. We found it in a most unlikely spot. While we were hiking through a dense, shady cedar swamp with ferns, mushrooms, and jack-in-the-pulpits we came across a clearing where some trees were knocked over during a storm.

In the middle of that sunny clearing was a single purple milkweed plant that had one lonely monarch caterpillar that was nearly full grown.

An airborne milkweed seed landed in the middle of the woods and took root. Later a female butterfly found it and laid an egg.

Deep in this seemingly inhospitable environment, it was no place for a butterfly. It’s a wonder how the Mother Monarch found her way there at all.

Bob

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July 31, 2019

Agricultural paper mulch is performing well so far

Filed under: Mulch,Weeds — Tags: agricultural paper mulch, biodegradable mulch, organic farm mulch, organic garden mulch, paper mulch, sheet paper mulch — bob @ 9:51 am

In a previous blog post I discussed how I was experimenting with agricultural paper as a weed barrier to control weeds in my garden.

Agricultural paper mulch is engineered to slowly break down over the course of a growing season. Then when the growing season is over, whatever is left of it gets tilled into your garden soil. That saves lots of labor and keeps debris out of the landfill. Plus, it adds a bit of organic matter to the topsoil.

Since it is paper, no nasty chemicals are released into the environment as garden soil microorganisms break it down. As a result, it is suitable for organic growing unlike “biodegradable plastic” that does breakdown into unwanted compounds.

We’re well into the growing season and it’s been about five weeks since I installed the agricultural paper in my garden. It’s protecting a row of tomatoes about twenty feet long. I thought it would be a good time to see how well it’s holding up.

Areas of paper are completely gone along the edges.

The decomposition process is beginning to be noticeable. You can see it as you walk by that the color is fading somewhat and that it’s coming apart here and there. It is however, still doing a great job keeping weeds from growing. The only places where weeds are evident are in the openings I made for planting and in spots where there was a tear or other damage.

The weakest spots are those narrow areas where the paper meets the soil surface where the edges are buried. In many places the paper is missing.

Paper is missing where it touched a lump of soil.

This is where the most biological activity is happening. I am not sure if is due to bacterial decomposition or from soil creatures like pill bugs chewing on it. It may be a combination of the two as the paper weakens making it more appealing to pill bugs or other arthropods.

So far, even with all the rain we’ve had, the paper is holding up quite well. I’ll continue monitoring the mulch and will keep you updated as the season progresses.

Bob

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