North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Rondi Anderson <nafex@mokalive.com>]

I have bermuda grass growing in one of my pastures and I've always 
thought it would be good in our orchard as it is late to grow in the 
spring, is thin and never gets higher then a foot often less then 9 
inches. It's grown around here for hay and is high in protein, but 
doesn't bind it into the soil as far as I aware.

I've considered herbs like comfrey too, but around here comfrey is a 
deer treat.

Rondi



On Apr 25, 2004, at 11:07 AM, nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 14:41:49 -0700
> From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Best groundcover for (home) orchard
> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <BCB02D2C.1BA77%lonrom@hevanet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Comfrey is a great soil builder, but it's not good in the orchard.  It
> brings up minerals from deep in the soil and really loosens hard, clay
> soils, but it's so juicy it's a mess to mow.  Best use I ever saw of 
> it was
> by a woman who had two acres separate from the orchard.  She cut it
> regularly with a sickle bar mower and put it in the orchard as mulch.  
> Her
> peaches and nectarines were the best I've ever tasted anywhere.
> -Lon Rombough
>
>
> Not using chemical herbicides or mechanical tilling,
> I'm not going to be able to keep the ground bare.
> What would be a good groundcover?  Does dutch clover
> or subterranean clover add too much N for the pears
> and apples?  vetch?  How about comfrey - that uses up
> N and is deep rooted, does it compete with the trees?
>
> Is "orchard grass" as difficult to keep under control
> as the grass and weed mix we have now?  We have to mow
>
> every week or two, which is way too much work.
>
> Lisa in Ashland Oregon
> USDA Z7 - Sunset Z7 - 1800' - 19" annual rainfall