Baymule’s 2020 Garden

[Xerocles]

Would y’all believe that the dadburned blankety-blank WEEDS are growing under the weed cloth?? Are you kidding me?

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Today I set out corn plants and reached under the weed cloth through the holes I cut for the corn, and pulled out all I could reach. Crabgrass, poke, goatweed, lambs quarters, giant ragweed, to name a few. I do have to say that the weed cloth has made a REMARKABLE difference. Take a look at this.

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Wow. My husband pulled weeds today while I planted the corn. He pulled 4 wagon loads, there is still plenty left. The Sheep loved them, even though we don’t.

I picked more English peas, I figure they are done. All together I got 14 bags of peas in the freezer. I also pulled the onions, they were ready.

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It started storming, we got 2” of rain in 2 hours and it is still raining. That’s good for the garden!

I'm not really familiar with that crop on the left of your picture, but it sure looks vibrant and healthy. Bet You're really proud of that!
BTW. I had to pull weeds in my garden two days ago. There were 12 of them. (Dang weeds!)

 

[baymule]

I'm not really familiar with that crop on the left of your picture, but it sure looks vibrant and healthy. Bet You're really proud of that!
BTW. I had to pull weeds in my garden two days ago. There were 12 of them. (Dang weeds!)

That crop on the left is lambs quarters. WEEDS!!
Actually, lambs quarters are great forage for the sheep. The sheep love it and lambs quarters is up to 40% protein. They grow up to 6' tall, each plant makes a ka-jillion teeny tiny seeds. I got a seed bank in my garden to last until the dinosaurs come back to life. And yes, I am extremely proud to have such healthy forage for the sheep. All I gotta do is pull them up and take them to the sheep-by the wagon loads.

 

[flowerbug]

Yes, some weeds understand how to get around weed cloth.

(Shouldn't that be a black fabric? I'm not really familiar with any of the products.) I gave up on weed cloth when bindweed and quakegrass happily traveled under my 2' paths from one garden bed to another. I don't want to know how far they could go ...

Sounds like you have the early crops for the kitchen. Now, for the later!

Steve

solid black with tiny holes in it for letting some water through is what we commonly have used. way back we did have some gray stuff that looked like fiberglass and i can still find it here or there under the older pathways and around gardens. they are all meant to be used with mulch as even the tiny little holes in the black will let some light through and just that little bit of light will give some plants energy to survive.

what we do when putting down new weed barrier if we can find it is use cardboard under the weed barrier fabric as an extra layer that will eventually rot away as it is eaten by worms/etc. we also put mulch on top as the sun can eventually degrade some of the weed barriers.

there are many different kinds of weed barrier fabrics. we have used a few that have not stood up very well. right now in the garden i'm removing pea gravel and drain tubes i had some old weed barrier fabric that i reused along an edge to keep the sand/clay from mixing with the pea gravel - when removing the pea gravel i've also been trying to get all the pieces of that out of there too so i can throw them away - it is tearing like tissue paper. i think i've gotten most of it out of there now, i just have one last four foot section to work on left before i can fill it all back in and level it. way more work than i wanted to do this time of the year in the heat we've been having, but it is getting there.

near the surface where i've got another layer of a different kind of weed barrier some of it has been chewed by bugs and has holes in it. it is a whole different type of material than the tissue paper type, but you would think that the manufacturers would have tested to see if it could be broken down by the various creatures or fungi or whatever? nope. pill bugs eat it, but only the areas that are not buried under mulch well enough to protect it. i have to decide what to do with some of this stuff, either keep it to reuse or throw it away... reuse would be nice in a few places but i have no mulch of any kind here to protect it.

and while i'm on the topic i've also had black plastic turn into something that crumbles or tears very easily after being buried for many years. that is fun to remove from the garden soil... other black plastic we've used has remained in decent condition as long as it is protected from the sun.

p.s. lambs quarters are edible but like spinach can have a bit of oxalic acid in them which some people don't tolerate very well.

 

[ninnymary]

Bay instead of pulling those lamb quarters and taking it to the sheep, couldn't you bring the sheep to it instead and save on weeding them?

Mary

 

[baymule]

Bay instead of pulling those lamb quarters and taking it to the sheep, couldn't you bring the sheep to it instead and save on weeding them?

Mary

The Sheep would eat the rest of the garden.

 

[seedcorn]

Plus they would just eat the tops allowing them to regrow and making them harder to kill.

 

[flowerbug]

Bay instead of pulling those lamb quarters and taking it to the sheep, couldn't you bring the sheep to it instead and save on weeding them?

Mary

need more fence, and then fences around the fences so the fences can be grazed and then fences around the other fences... actually it could be done via paddock grazing, but you have to have the sheepies trained to it and the time to move them when the times is right.

you for sure would not want them trampling your weed barrier fabric. but perhaps this would be a marketing opportunity in that you could make little soft foot covers for them...

 

[ninnymary]

I was thinking more of the chicken tractor concept. Where you would section off a part of the garden and bring the sheep in.

But I do like the soft foot covers! haha

Mary

 

[baymule]

Last year I sectioned off the garden using green plastic mesh. The stinkers pushed up under it and happily ate what I didn’t want them to. Ringo and two ewes are in a pasture next to the garden. They were glad to stop working so darn hard grazing and were delighted to munch on the ragweed and lambs quarters I tossed over the fence to them. I took 3 wagon loads to the ewes and Ringo and his 2 girlfriends have 2 wagon loads waiting on them at the barn. Even the pigs got green yummies today. Plenty of weeds for all! Gosh I’m tired and got a sneaking hunch I’ve got sore muscles about to show up.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One of my late summer early fall chores as a kid was to get weeds for our pigs. I got several different kinds but the most common was what dad called "careless weed". Another common name for it is "pigweed".

The pigweed I had in northwest Arkansas had thorns, you could hurt yourself on those. The stuff in East Tennessee where I grew up did not have thorns. There are probably several different varieties.