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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] bermuda grass
  • Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 14:26:57 -0800 (PST)

We are blessed with plenty of Bermuda grass, quack grass, Kikuyu grass, etc.,
all of which are very beneficial to the soil.

When I started cultivating this land nearly 15 years ago, my neighbors told
me that I ought to get some chemicals to get rid of these “pests”. Today,
having gone a little way along that learning curve, I am glad, that I didn’t
follow their advice. In the beginning, I did try to dig these weeds from
the vegetable beds; I even went as far as digging trenches and burying
rhizome barriers. I never liked doing that, not just because of the hard
labor, but also because disturbing the soil and removing these weeds somehow
impoverishes the soil and destroys soil structure. Using card board or
plastic sheeting is even worse because the soil does need to breath and to
suffocate all vegetation for a year or two does more harm than anything else.
I even planted a small forest of closely spaced acacias in one of my fields
because I heard about a guy in down under who had crowded out Kikuyu grass in
that way. I didn’t like that either.

A few years ago, I discovered that I can plant broad beans or other cool
season legumes into a field of quack grass because quack grass, like most
other grasses of this type, is a warm season perennial that will go dormant
during the cool season. Even without tilling, the broad beans grew better in
the field of quack grass than in any other field. My only worry now is that
the quack grass will be crowded out by the broad beans.

Native weeds are usually more beneficial to soil than cover crops. It’s just
a matter of finding out what food crop will grow with what weed by which
method.

Dieter Brand
Portugal



--- On Wed, 12/1/10, Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Livingontheland] bermuda grass
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 1:35 AM







In Lubbock we have common bermuda.  If I had one wish it would be to send all
bermuda back to Africa.  Sorry, wishes do not come true so I got rid of it
two ways:  I dug it out using a digging fork and my hands and by covering it
in cardboard for a season.  It has to have sunshine or it dies. 
 
It spreads by runners on the ground.  I believe it would climb a six foot
solid fence to spread???
 
Ken



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  • Re: [Livingontheland] bermuda grass, Dieter Brand, 12/01/2010

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