permaculture

[Mark Ludwig <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>]

At 05:13 PM 3/30/02 -0500, you wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Can someone tell me what this is ?  I coulda swore I sowed winter rye but am
> being told this may be crab grass ?  ( Either way, I'm amazed at how well it
> wintered - it's as green as it was in fall !)
>
> As this is covering about half my food forest ( had 56 holes dug today !)
> The important thing I want to know is: do I need to till it out and replace
> with clover/wildflowers - or can I work with it ?
Looks like rye to me, but my graphics board is pretty poor.  Crab grass is 
a warm season annual so it's almost certainly not that.  Rye will be 
growing tall and heading out this season, so you probably should till it 
in.  If you wait a while you will get some weed suppression and some corse 
high C material that should help with restoration by tieing up free N and 
thereby suppressing weed growth.
Mark L