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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Pumpkins, Weeds and Shade
  • Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:55:14 -0400


On Mar 19, 2010, at 10:59 AM, Carol Moss wrote:

I realize the thought of weeds in the pumpkin patch offend our sense of cultivating pumpkins but I thought more about it. I have grown okra in rows next to pumpkins many times. They appreciate the shade here in Texas. I notice the pumpkin vines tend to grow over to the okra and produce pumpkins in the shade beneath the okra plants. So the pumpkins like weeds comment does make sense in that context.


This is an area in which I would really like to see more research done. We have long since moved on from "insects are bad! kill them all off!" to "some insects are beneficial, some neutral, and even of the pests certain levels of infestation are easily tolerated by certain crops at specific growth stages". I wonder if a similar attitude isn't a better way to approach weeds.

The weeds that will come up in a specific field, after all, are the plants that can easily make use of the resources available under those specific conditions. It's certainly true that weeds compete with crop plants for light, water, and nutrients; and it's certainly true that too much weed pressure at the wrong time can destroy a crop. However, it's also true that weeds can often access nutrients that are unavailable to the crop plant and move them into a more available form; can often reach deep ground water that the crop can't get at; can punch through compaction layers; can protect the soil from erosion. They can also provide habitat for beneficial insects and other organisms; some of them may discourage the growth of pest organisms -- including, in some cases, the growth of more noxious weeds.

Maybe we should try considering weeds more in the way in which we consider cover crops: what species are useful in a given crop at a given time of year? what species are actually doing harm, and do they do harm at all points in the farm cycle, or at some points but not others?

We have taken lovely garlic crops out of very weedy fields. As long as the weeds are controlled early in the season, it doesn't seem to matter if they grow up before harvest.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale







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