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  • From: "Lisa Rollens" <rollens@fidnet.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Crabgrass, Bermuda grass, etc.
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:39:41 -0500

Jamie,

Your reply is not inflammatory, it was right on the money and we needed to be reminded. I have been listening intently to this discussion about Bermuda grass hoping for a solution to get rid of mine. Most of my "design area", my yard, is covered with Bermuda grass, and having lived in the south USA for 20 years, I know that gardening with Bermuda grass is frustrating, to say the least, a waste of time, to say more. I tried every different method known to woman to get rid of the Bermuda, and the only thing that works for me is to dig up the roots. then, when the pieces you don't get the first time come up, you must be diligent about digging them up as soon as they appear. I leave the soil unmulched for a while so I can see the shoots. I have tried mulching them out with everything, and nothing kills the rhizomes. They just keep going until they find light on the other side of the mulch.

In Edible Forest Gardens, Jacke talks about modifying the site and minimizing unwanted plants from the start. That would certainly refer to Bermuda grass. The idea is that with patience at the beginning, the end result could be greater productivity, and certainly less work, in the long run.

I have crab grass here and there but it is nothing compared to Bermuda grass. I really do feel that growing areas need to be free of Bermuda for the most productivity, and least work.

If anyone else has any solutions to the Bermuda grass problem, please speak up!

Lisa, in the Ozarks, USA


----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamie Nicol" <souscayrous@gmail.com>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 4:34 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Crabgrass, Bermuda grass, etc.


Warning: This answer is deliberately inflammatory!

Dear Dieter, why does nature offer you so many problems?

There is no single technique to destroy a single plant because no plant
grows alone - it is the result of a relational context of which we can only
have the dimmest of notions.

Crab grass is the result of cleared vegetation (perhaps due to your efforts
to clear your land for fear of wildfire?). Broadscale, bare field
agriculture (whether no-till or not) is the necessary condition for
desertification in droughty areas (Savory's 'brittle landscapes'). Crab
grass (and the madrinho you have cut down) is simply the momentary, natural
progression toward revegetation.

Crab grass is just the result of human action.

Cease swimming against the flow of revegetation. Learn how to move with the
flow, subtly effecting the changes toward your desired landscape. Allow
everything to grow and continue to expand the possible plant diversity by
continuing to cast seeds and seedballs.

Food does not grow from out of a growing medium but from soil and soil does
not exist where there is not a diverse array of plants filling every niche.
You know this, we all know this! So why do we continue to focus exclusively
upon a 'weed' or a particular crop...

List of seeds to cast: ground cover - luzerne (alfalfa), black medic, white
clover and never remove native leguminous plants; vegetables - all kinds of
beets and radishes, asparagus, miner's lettuce, parsley, white mustard,
chicory, coriander (cilantro), borage, cardoon, artichoke, Jerusalem
artichoke (sunchoke), calendula, sunflowers, rocket (rucola), phacelia,
tomato, aubergine, lentils, chick peas, peas, soya, cereals - maize, millet,
amaranth, tef, wheat, barley, wild oats (always reliable!), trees - black
and silver wattle (Acacia spp), apricot, peach, nectarine, pomegranate,
jujube, pistacchio, almond, black locust, honey locust, carob, wild cherry,
feijoa, fig, loquat, black mulberry, persimmon, tagasaste, holm and cork
oak.

If you do not have the time to move with the flow of nature then you can
plough, spray, smother...conventional and organic farming do get their
returns and so will you, unfortunately this includes desertification.

Rain does not fall from the sky but grows up from the ground.

Jamie
Souscayrous

PS Read Meister Eckhart on 'gelassenheit': leben ohne warum.







On 6/18/07, Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com> wrote:

Paul,

Plantain will grow pretty much anywhere. If anything, my fields with
crabgrass have worse drainage than other places.

Regarding the rye, I have bad news. The crabgrass already shows
through the patches where I had rye in the winter. The rye does of
course display allelophatic properties towards weeds; however, the
allelophatic function weakens after you cut the rye, even if you leave
the straw as mulch. This makes the rye option useless for me since
I don't have enough humidity to grow rye in the summer.

I will try seeding the plantain into the crabgrass invested fields.

Dieter Brand
Portugal

Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net> wrote: I associate plantain
with poor winter drainage. Perhaps that is what the
crabgrass can't take. I recall from unknown sources that winter rye is
allelopathic, and so makes a good smother crop -- so confirmation
through hearsay.
Paul Cereghino

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