weed |wēd|

noun

a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.

Anyone who has a garden or worked on a non-mechanized farm knows about weeds. At ECHO, they are the #1 time-consumer and the bane of the interns' existence.  We have a few methods of dealing with weeds:

1. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in round-up, will kill most plants within two weeks.  It does not kill seeds however, and is indiscriminate so you have to be well clear of your crops.

2. Manual pulling is the most effective option, but is also the most time consuming.  

3. Weed whacking will cut plants to ground before they go to seed but does not necessarily kill the plant.  The effects only last about two weeks.

4. Cover the weeds until they die: This is the most efficient option when used in conjunction with weed whacking.  2-3 layers of newspaper with mulch on top will prevent weeds from getting sunlight and kill many of them.  Combining this with hand-weeding around the crop plants and your time is used most efficiently.  The added benefit is the soil-building that occurs as the mulch decomposes.  

Some thought should be given to the role weeds play.  They will generally fill in any space that receives sunlight.  In one respect they are adding efficiency to the land you have because they are converting sunlight to organic matter.  If those weeds are pulled and added to a compost pile, they become a source for rich soil for future crops.  In that light, weeds have become a resource and are technically no longer a weed.  On the other hand, there are plants out there that will fill the same role of covering the ground with green but will also fix nitrogen in the soil and stay where you plant them.  So the ideal is a low-growing (doesn't compete with crops for sun) nitrogen fixing (takes N from the air vs the ground) plant that requires no maintenance or care.  The perennial peanut is a good example of this at ECHO.  It is a non-bearing peanut variety that fixes nitrogen and covers the ground which drastically reduces the weed population.  It is easily kept in line and can grow in sandy soil.  

The flip side to covering all your ground with green cover is that insects (both beneficial and harmful) have a place to live and hide.  The answer to this is to introduce a non-native species to consume the pest and when that grows out of control, bring in a predator higher on the food chain to control it, and so on.  This is effective because eventually you reach the top of the food chain which is people, i.e. me.  I can eat the Bengal tigers I have introduced to eat the Zambian rhesus monkeys which I introduced to eat the Japanese beetles which I introduced to eat the root knot nematodes that are native to Florida.  Problem solved!  I don't know why Australia has such a problem with this.

New experiences in the last 7 days:

1. Had lightening strike within 100 feet of me.

2. Learned how to tie a buntline hitch