Weeds, rhetoric and reality?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Grahame, Jan 3, 2011.

  1. Noz

    Noz Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2008
    Messages:
    89
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Hey Mischief

    What a fantastic post - I've read Fukuoka as well and I might be tempted to try to out compete it if I thought the neighbours wouldn't complain about the look of it. I think that sweet potato would be beaten by couch, but I could be wrong.
    I might try the jar approach - I gather that glyphosphate does leave residual poison and I can pull up most of the couch after it dies.
    I don't have access to lawn clippings - I've asked a couple of people but they are a bit too disorganised / don't see me often enough. My close friends mostly don't have lawn - they have ducks, fake lawn, mulch, paving or gardens. Plus, I'm not sure I could get it all unless I did a sheet mulch.
    Cheers
     
  2. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2007
    Messages:
    2,721
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    It's not enough to mulch, you have to block it first, build beds on top, and then mulch.

    Roundup damages gardens. It doesn't just kill plants, it changes what is happening in the soil. I can see a case for one off use in some special situations, but ongoing use is not permaculture IMO because it requires ignoring the complex interactions that are happening in the garden. It also becomes self defeating.
     
  3. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2007
    Messages:
    2,721
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    My understanding about Fukuoka's work is not that he has a formula for nature gardening, but that he taught that you have to engage with your own garden and learn from it. I don't think his gardening techniques are particularly transferable (although some are certainly useful tools and starting points). You have to observe and engage with your land deeply and then you will learn how to work with what is there (couch included) rather than fighting some things (you fight couch you never win IMO).
     
  4. sun burn

    sun burn Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2010
    Messages:
    1,676
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    https://www.google.com.au/imgres?im...LQ_ENAU267&tbs=isch:1&ei=H_lDTfqCOMfJcdurvOgN

    Sorry for this long link but its supposed to be about how to get rid of couch grass. I was going to suggest smothering the area with plastic for a few weeks. Make it a month to be really sure. YOu don't have ot go out and buy any. Search around your house or tip shops or other second hand places. Buy some old tents, old tarps, shower curtains, blinds anything that will block the light, air and water.

    I am not sure if you have other plants growing in this area where the couch is so that you would be unable to do it.

    But look at the link. It might show you why you are having couch problems in the first place.
     
  5. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2008
    Messages:
    2,215
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    36
    This has made me re-think the question and the thought I was looking to provoke in my original post...

    I guess what I was really trying to get at is what are the ways you can find to declare what you once considered a weed as an opportunity or a resource. Many of the 'weeds' I used to have in my garden our now valuable chicken feeds, or green manures, or suppressants of other weeds. However, I am yet to find the hidden value of couch for example. I am yet to see 'the problem is the solution' for couch. I know all the theories and practices for getting rid of it (most of which I have used with varying degrees of success/failure) but how does one learn to love it? What is it's intrinsic value? Is it telling me something about my soil or my gardening techniques, is it communicating something to me? What role is it playing? Surely it is there for a reason other than to irritate me

    Get my drift?
     
  6. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2009
    Messages:
    2,457
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Occupation:
    Farm manager/ educator
    Location:
    Hunter Valley New South Wales
    Home Page:
    Climate:
    warm temperate - some frost - changing every year
    Cooch makes a great place for green ants to hide and wait in ambush. It is said to have medicinal properties of great measure and in stabilizing a bank or disturbed soil it has few equals. Guinea kids love the stuff and the kids love to play on it. But watch that the kids don't eat the poo.
    It is generally hardy and takes less water to maintain than some other lawn grasses. The runners are easily wound into very usable string. It is easily controlled with a spaded edge or a mowing strip and line edger

    Hows that for starters Gman
     
  7. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2008
    Messages:
    2,215
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Well, while I am not yet enamoured of it, I can say that I have a slight easing in the general feeling of animosity towards it :)

    If only I could speak couchinese, I might be able to understand it better. I'm sure it means no harm, but it is not being clear on what it is trying to tell me.
     
  8. pippimac

    pippimac Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2009
    Messages:
    475
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I mulch my garden beds so thickly that the only things that grow there do so with my blessing.
    Outside the beds, it's a plant riot and pretty much anything's welcome.
    I'm really lucky: I have no 'challenging' plants like couch or convovulus and the dandelions, clover and yarrow are coming on nicely.
    I'm quietly thrilled to have chamomile popping up. Next time I'm in the country I'll bring back plantain seeds.
    Some things don't feel the love: I spent my childhood endlessly hauling on fumitory, and I've developed a slightly pathological attitude towards it...although you've got to respect something that's designed to makes you *think* you've pulled it out, but has in fact snapped above the root and is already marshalling its resources for another assault on...everything...
     
  9. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2007
    Messages:
    2,721
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    I'm not sure how much this applies to couch, but grasses in general are important soil conditioners when farmed well. I've been learning about how letting grass grow long and then grazing it back creates root depth and densities that feed the soil microbes. I'm sure that doesn't help you Graham, but in your situation I would be looking at where couch does work well and learning its good points in general rather than what it can do for me directly.

    Also I do think it's about approach. Do you want to describe specifically what the situation is?
     
  10. milifestyle

    milifestyle New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 15, 2008
    Messages:
    1,573
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Rabbits are supposed to be good on couch... put them in a cage over the area and let them dig until they have uprooted it. might need to subsidize feed in the process... and monitor the cage in case they dig out...

    Pigs might work similarly well on larger areas.
     
  11. Noz

    Noz Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2008
    Messages:
    89
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    To allow space on my terraces for couch killing (I'm quite familiar already with how to kill grasses but at the time I didn't see the need; 20:20 hindsight), I would have to remove the old mulch and dispose of it. Not to mention the seed bank that I'm building up in my soil - comfrey, borage, cape goosberry etc. I believe Mollison would do the same thing I'm doing; namely, minimal spot treatment of couch as it springs up to kill the whole root. I'm aware of the bad impact on the soil (The World According to Monsanto) and am generally not in favour of glyphosphate but for couch, I'm willing to make an exception to spot spray.
     
  12. Noz

    Noz Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2008
    Messages:
    89
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    lol :)

    Can't say that I feel the same way, but after reading the other members' posts I can see a few situations where couch would be really useful - particularly for soil stabilisation and for regrowth after droughting. I suppose I'd only recommend that if you had animals to get rid of it later.
     
  13. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2009
    Messages:
    5,925
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    0
    pippimac - what are you mulching with? Since the Great Fence of Nambour was installed against my wishes cutting off the access point where I used to get my tree loppers mulch delivered, I've been left trying to make enough on site for my needs. Which is going to take a while as the plants that I picked are all still growing....
     
  14. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2007
    Messages:
    2,721
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Location:
    inland Otago, NZ
    Climate:
    Inland maritime/hot/dry/frosty
    Yes, having no couch at all would be a major undertaking. Not sure you would have to dispose of the mulch, why not just re-use it? Re-seeding borage is very easy, don't know about cape gooseberry, and if you have seeding comfrey you're a braver man than I Gungadin. I have no idea what Mollison would do (and really it's irrelevant unless he's standing in *your* garden), but if you are happy spraying then you're sorted, no?

    I don't know the extent of the problem at your place (can't remember if you went into detail) but I've had several gardens with couch lawns and couch getting into the garden periodically. My neighbour used to hate the stuff and battled it. I just found it interesting to work with, and hand weeding to be quite satisfying (of the kind that a link was posted about before - you don't dig or chop, and you find the end of the runner as far back under the soil as possible). The point I'm getting at, in line with the theme of this thread, is that approach and attitude will determine a large part of the problem. In my experience, trying to 'kill off' the plant without using other measures sets up a pattern in the garden for the couch to come back, often with a vengeance. That's its purpose after all, it's meant to get into those places and take over, and will do so with vigour if it is threatened. Using roundup would create that even more IMO, but even using something 'natural' to 'get rid' of weeds takes us down a track that creates more of the same problem. This is less of a problem when used one off or very occasionally, but used as a standard practice it probably encourages weeds.

    I'm probably not making much sense. You want a mechanical fix I think, I finding weeds in domestic gardens respond better to an ecosystem shift.
     
  15. pippimac

    pippimac Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2009
    Messages:
    475
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    eco: I use pea-straw that I get really cheaply from a friend, free grass-clippings from the lawn guys and chipped trees for more permanent areas.
    I just couldn't grow enough biomass on my tiny place, although comfrey tries its darndest!
     
  16. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2009
    Messages:
    5,925
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Thanks pippi. I'll keep on with my plans for planting more ground covers and wait for the acacias etc to grow so I can cut them and shred them.
     
  17. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2008
    Messages:
    2,215
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Well, I braved the heat and went out to speak with a few of the couch populations to see if I might get a better understanding of them. I realised it was the soil talking to me through the couch, like many of the plants out there they were saying...

    More organic matter please!
     
  18. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2009
    Messages:
    2,457
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    38
    Occupation:
    Farm manager/ educator
    Location:
    Hunter Valley New South Wales
    Home Page:
    Climate:
    warm temperate - some frost - changing every year
    I just love the way you think Grahame.
     
  19. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2009
    Messages:
    1,665
    Likes Received:
    94
    Trophy Points:
    48
    Gender:
    Female
    Occupation:
    s/e
    Location:
    South Waikato New ZeLeand
    Climate:
    Cool mountain
    Just remembered something.
    Years ago when we reroofed the house, we kept the old corro iron for, just in case- (wound up gibving it to someone in exchange for roof trusses for the shed I built.)
    Anyway, these were stored up off the ground over a bit of the lawn about 3 sheets worth wide.
    When we moved them 6months later, nothing was growing underneath them.

    I noticed today the the sheet of corro lying on the ground (fell off its perch) has stuff growing under and trying to grow over it.
    So maybe if you happen to have corro iron lying around or your neighbour is reroofing you could look after theirs for them this might be worth trying.
    It would have to be weighted down if you get heavy winds tho.
     

Share This Page

-->