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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] improving soil moisture-retention

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Gloria Baikauskas <gcb49@flash.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] improving soil moisture-retention
  • Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:59:39 -0800 (PST)

Queen Anne's Lace is Daucus carota.  It is member of the parsnip family....but most folks just call it wild carrot.  It has roots that are white and not usually as thick as most carrots are today, but it is what carrots developed from in the wild....or with man's help.  The roots are edible.  It is pretty when it is growing with white flower heads on tall stalks of lacy leaves.      It is a biennial.  In colder climates it is usually treated as an annual. 
 
It will take over.  It seeds itself prolifically.  The shade beneath it is dense.  When I was cutting it back I laid beneath it on a really hot Texas day.  It was so cool beneath it I almost stopped cutting it.  If I hadn't cut it at that point, I would have had another crop of it, though. 
 
Basically what I have done is use wild plants to stop all else from growing in that spot.  When the Queen Anne's Lace was growing the Johnson grass could not grow because it had no light. 
 
It is able to grow even in the Texas drought....so I am guessing it will grow without much water.  OTH because it shades the soil so well little moisture can escape in the sun's heat. 
 
Gloria, Texas



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