hi everybody I am clearing an acre of rampant 10mm running bamboo with a view to starting a food forest near tokyo , japan . Conventional farming wisdom has told me I will need to dig out all the roots and burn them and the bamboo , but permaculture often flies in the face of conventional wisdom ... so , 3 questions ... 1.can you mulch cut bamboo , or compost it in some accelerated manner perhaps 2.I have heard bamboo leaves are antiseptic and will stop/slow the decompostition proceess any info ? 3. digging out the roots will disturb the very rich soil below , and be very labur intensive ... perhaps I can sheet mulch , and just keep cutting new coming bamboo , putting in my desired trees and plants amongst the roots hoping they will get tired and decompose one day ? thanks and much appreciation for any info ... sincerely , david duval-smith
What about chopping off the existing stalks, then penning goats in the area and letting them eat them as they come up? Most plants can be killed if you keep the tops chopped off so the plant can't use photosynthesis to make chlorophyll to keep the roots going. Do you have any rental goats around there? :lol: Sue
interesting idea ! goat tractors ... I noticed there are a lot of bamboo killed by climbing vines also ... perhaps some kiwifruit and bitter melon and other useful hardyclimbers would speed it up too
Would "solarisation"( Jackie French's word) work or make it worse? Coving area in clear and/or black plastic to cook the bamboo?? You need a Panda
BamPoo sandwich in the shape of a torus with a cast iron bath in center for ocean-view compost onsen! Now I believe the question is, how much should we be charging at the gate? [/b]
Yuck running bamboo..I thought i had a problem with my clumping bamboo.. hope you post any good ways you find back in here as im sure the answers would help alot of people out.... I run chooks in and around my bamboo and it keeps growing but not at a great rate though.good for raising chicks,the bamboo will make heaps of material for anything from mulch to tomato and bean stakes. Ask the question..."do i really need to put my Forest garden in that spot"? Personally its not really worth trying unless you only have that area to start with...Running bamboo does just that. RUN!!! My clumping hasnt affected any of my trees yet,but no promises after another few years or so Tezza
If you feed your bamboo with a high nitrogen fertilser, when the growth comes up, it will be soft and sappy, perfect time for attack... can kill with glophostate, or try putting black plastic over and'steaming' it to death :shock:
I would firstly cut the bamboo down to ground level. Fence the plot really well and then put 3 or 4 pigs in. Leave a small patch right in the centre for shade and also see how pigs go on the full grown stuff. Pigs will eat the new growth and probably most of the roots. They will certainly get most of the roots to the surface where you can collect them. In about 6-8 months you should have a clean plot and a nice pork harvest. The pigs will still need supplement feeding and shelter. cheers
g'day david, solarization might need to be done under concrete or sheets of steel?? that bamboo is tough stuff, have heard the cut and paint method using glypho will help, but guess you would need to treat every new growth as quickly as. but the only successfull way that i have heard of is dig it out which means to a depth up to a meter, and you have to chase every rhizome down until they are all gone. len
Although i'v never dealt with running bamboo I'v found that cutting, covering with a thick (1" or more) layer of newspaper and then black plastic on top works very well for most things. I'v used this method for normal bamboo, blackberries, cooch grass etc... very sucessfully. The tougher the plant, the longer you have to cover the area. The newspaper ensures that nothing grows through the plastic and also stops a any remaining light or heat which can make things grow wuder the plastic. This is the only time i use newspaper in my garden. cheers, IG
An orbit of eels in chinampa 220 meters length ( quarantine the bamboo root community) roughly containing, your acre. A weekend of toasting marshmallows and Taiwanese squirrels within the chinampa (and bamboo roots too!) Make room round the fires for the compost bathers! Anyone for SmoreS!
We've got bamboo running over our place from the neighbours, although only a suburban block. Its a nuisance. But regarding covering it to get rid of it - we had a thick tarp with a pile of pebbles about 1 foot high in the middle and spreading out over the tarp over a patch that we thought we'd dug all the bamboo out of (it was sitting there having moved the pebbles from elsewhere, waiting to work out where to put them) and it didn't take long for the bamboo to split the tarp and grow through the middle of it all. So it certainly wouldn't have had much light etc there. I wouldn't count on blocking it out working. From what I've read, digging it up is the answer. I've also read previously about overfertilising it (ie nitrogen as mentioned in a previous message) but can't remember the whole method. Fiona
Try painting new shoots with kerosene. You could of course, give up. Eat the bamboo shoots and turn the long canes into Tomato stakes, furniture fencing flutes, scaffolding, or charcoal for Terra preta, etc.
