Organic Weed Management

April 6, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Spring is an exciting time in the garden. We have beds full of freshly sprouting plants, transplants hardening off, and perennials returning to life. Many of you may even be eating the year’s first salads or tender asparagus. While it’s an incredibly fun time in the garden, it’s a good time to look ahead too. They may not be a problem yet, but soon, weeds will start trying to outcompete our precious vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Learn about the different methods of organic weed management and keep up with them from the start.

Cultivate

Weeds are easiest to take care of when they’re small. When you’re direct seeding, mark your rows well so that you can conquer small weeds early, even if they’re too tiny to tell what they are. There are several ways to do this, but I have a couple of favorite tools for keeping up with small weeds.

One of my favorite tools for this is the stirrup or hoop hoe. It has a long wooden handle and a U-shaped blade that oscillates back and forth, cutting weeds off just below the surface as you move it.

For longer beds, I like to use a wheel hoe with similar stirrup hoe-type blades attached. Wheel hoes generally have single (one blade) or double configurations (two blades). If you have one of these, it’s a good idea to plant your crops so that a wheel hoe can easily be maneuvered through the rows, at least while your plants are small.

Flame Weed

Flame weeding comes at the cost of propane, but it can be a huge labor savor. When weeds are between 1 and 4 inches, it’s nearly 100% effective. A basic flame weeder consists of a propane tank, hose, and torch, which allows you to burn weeds. Typically, the propane tank is carried in a backpack-style carrier, but this may be unnecessary for small gardens.

Flame weeding has become increasingly popular among small commercial farms. Today you can find flame weeder torches that can be rolled over the bed or even carts that include multiple torch heads and spot for the propane tank for those doing large amounts of garden space.

The goal of flame weeding isn’t to burnt the plant in its entirety, just slowly pass the flame over the plants. The heat damages the plants’ cell structures, and they die over the next few hours or days. Flame weeding is a great technique to use just before planting. If you already have crops in the bed, be sure to avoid getting too close to them.

Rotate Your Crops & Employ Cover Crops

Crop rotation helps prevent soils from becoming unbalanced and makes it more challenging for certain weeds to become established. Including some fast-growing crops in your plan is a great idea that can help outcompete weeds in trouble areas. These crops may include winter squash, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, and dent corn.

Cover crops are an essential part of any crop rotation plan. They help build soil structure, improve fertility, and suppress weeds. Some rapidly growing cover crops like buckwheat can quickly outcompete many weeds and are great for problem areas. Some cover crops like mustard, oats, rye, and Sudan grass are allelopathic, producing a chemical inhibiting weed growth. Cover crop residue also serves as a mulch in no-till systems.

Solarize Your Beds

Another method you can use to prepare a bed and kill weeds is to solarize the bed. Place a clear plastic tarp over your bed and allow it to heat the soil and any weeds that are growing. Typically, this is done for weed control, but some studies have found this heat treatment also helps kill some pathogens.

Keep the Areas Around Your Garden Cleared

Weeds can quickly spread into gardens from unmowed paths or perimeters. Weeds going to seed in your yard can be spread into your garden with just a bit of breeze. Some weeds also reproduce by stolons or creeping vines that root at the nodes to form new plants. Keeping these cut back will help reduce the weeds you need to handle.

Don’t Water Your Weeds

Another way you can lessen the weed growth in your garden is to avoid watering them. Sprinklers are a common and affordable choice for many gardeners but don’t focus water on your plants. They water all the weeds around them too! This is wasteful and encourages weed growth. If it’s an option for you, consider switching to drip tape or soaker hoses, which can direct water to the roots of your crops and not the entire garden.

Minimize Soil Disruption

Many weed species have seeds that can lay dormant in the soil for years until they are disturbed and exposed to light. In a natural setting, this helps the plants take advantage of new openings, but in our case, it makes them ready-made to colonize fresh-tilled earth quickly. Opting for no-till or minimal-till can help you see a decrease in weed germination over several years.

Mulch

Apply a layer of mulch to your garden beds as soon as you can. Mulch helps prevent some seeds from sprouting by blocking out light and is tough for young weeds to go through. You can use various materials as mulch, including grass clippings, old leaves, straw, wood chips, or hay.

What Can You Learn From Your Weeds?

Sometimes the weeds we struggle with tell us something about our gardens. While it isn’t always the case, if you have a lot of one weed species, it could indicate something about your soil. Here are a few common weeds and the types of conditions you’re most likely to find them in:

Crabgrass (Digitaria spp.): sandy soil, compacted soil, low calcium, low nutrients
Bindweed (Convolvulus spp.): poorly drained, compacted, crusty soil
Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale): compacted soil
Dock (Rumex spp.): poorly drained soil
Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule): high nitrogen
Lambsquarters (Chenopodium album): rich soil, high nitrogen
Mullein (Verbascum thapsus): acidic soil, low fertility.
Mustard (Brassica spp.): dry, sandy soil, high in phosphorous
Plantain (Plantago spp.): compacted soil (often heavy clay), acidic soil, low fertility
Pigweed (Amaranthus spp.): Rich soil, high levels of nitrogen
Quackgrass (Elymus repens): compacted soil
Quickweed (Galinsoga spp.): high levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium

You can have perfect soil and still have weeds, but sometimes it’s worth exploring why a particular weed is so prevalent in your garden. If you haven’t had a soil test in a while, they’re always a good idea.

Weeds may not seem like a problem right now, but they will be if we let them get out of hand. Use these organic weed management techniques to stay on top of the weeds and have a productive, enjoyable summer garden.

Garden Advice

Saving Seed: Ancient Beginnings

March 31, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

For thousands of years, human history has been intertwined with seeds. We depended on the seeds we grew and stewarded to provide food, medicine, fiber for clothing, dye, and many of the other building blocks of our lives. Saving seed altered the way we lived, farmed, ate, and celebrated. Vandana Shiva probably put it best when she said, “seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being.”

Our journey with seed saving and agriculture has been long and complex. Humans didn’t just decide one day to give up our nomadic lifestyles and settle down; we transitioned to agricultural societies over thousands of years. So when did it first begin, and why? Why did hunter-gathers start saving seeds and then selecting them for specific traits?

Why Did Humans Begin Saving Seed?

Today, there are many qualities we focus on when saving seed. We select for traits like flavor, vigor, cold-hardiness, color, size, drought tolerance, and more. These qualities probably weren’t the focus of ancient seed savers. They had to deal with other issues first.

So far, researchers have found that hunter-gathers first started to save and select the seeds of regionally available grain crops. The first characteristic they probably focused on was the “non-shattering trait.” In wild plants, being able to spread your seed is highly advantageous. Plants disperse their seeds in several ways, including wind, animals, and water. In wild cereals, the seed heads shatter, and the seeds drop from the plant as soon as they dry and mature.

This trait presented a considerable roadblock to efficiently gathering large amounts of grains for humans. They had to time gathering grain just right before it was dropped or blown off by the wind. It was also much harder to harvest without waste, leaving so much up to chance.

Researchers found some of the earliest evidence of humans selecting for non-shattering rice along the Lower Yangtze River in China. The non-shattering gene was also found in einkorn (wild wheat) in Tell Qaramel, an archeological site in modern-day northern Syria, and in barley and emmer (wheat) in several parts of the Fertile Crescent or what is now portions of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran (Allaby et al., 2017).

Developing grains with the non-shattering trait that retained their seeds was an enormous breakthrough for humans and would have improved the reliability and productivity of these cereals. It also represents when our lives began to intertwine with seeds. Humans were not just gatherers anymore; we became seed savers.

When Did Humans Begin Saving Seed?

So when did this all begin? Studies in recent years have shown that initial seed selection for those non-shattering traits began occurring long before we initially believed, dating back to the Pleistocene glacial era roughly 30,000 years ago (Allaby et al., 2017)!

These initial seed selections did not mean these early seed savers were becoming full-time farmers. These were still largely nomadic hunter-gathers supplementing their diet with wild cereals that they helped encourage and cultivate. Humans throughout the world were still mainly living nomadic, hunter-gather lifestyles until roughly 12,000 years ago, during a period which has been dubbed the “Neolithic Revolution” (National Geographic Society, 2022).

Ancient terrace rice fields in Yunnan Province, China

The Development of Agriculture

There is evidence of fig tree orchards in the Jordan Valley from roughly 11,300 years ago, signs of squash cultivation in Mexico date to at least 10,000 years ago, and cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs were all domesticated in the Fertile Crescent between 13,000 to 10,000 years ago (National Geographic Society, 2022). So what changed to make humans take up farming full-time? Scientists are not entirely sure.

In some regions like the Near East, this period brought about climatic changes that suited the production of annual plants. In other areas, a decline in natural resources as populations grew may have forced people to supplement their diets (Weitzel, 2019). An acceleration of domestication of plant varieties also coincides with the invention of sickle farming technology about 8,000 years ago (Hays, 2017). Some researchers even believe that agriculture took off as societies began to recognize private property rights. Simply put, humans like to own stuff (Chatterjee, 2013).

While these are all relevant theories, none of them likely caused the shift towards agriculture in its entirety. Humans moved towards agricultural societies for different combinations of reasons that varied over regions and cultures.

From these humble beginnings, humans continued to grow and save seed. Cultures across the world bred and stewarded their own staple crops and livestock. These varieties became essential parts of our everyday lives, our heritage, and our culture.

Saving Seed Today

Today, there are relatively few people saving seed. We are no longer hunter-gatherers trying to supplement our diets or subsistence farmers trying to grow every calorie we consume. Most of us don’t even grow a portion of our food, but today seed saving is just as important as it was thousands of years ago. When we fail to continue the work of stewarding seeds, we lose thousands of years of work and information. We lose biodiversity. We lose culture. We lose flavor. We lose celebration.

If you have the ability to take on one extra garden project this year, save seed from your favorite variety.

References

Allaby, R. G., Stevens, C., Lucas, L., Maeda, O., & Fuller, D. Q. (2017). Geographic mosaics and changing rates of cereal domestication. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 372(1736). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0429

Chatterjee, R. (2023, March 30). Why Humans Took Up Farming: They Like To Own Stuff. NPR. Retrieved May 13, 2013, from https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/13/183710778/why-humans-took-up-farming-they-like-to-own-stuff

Hays, B. (2017, October 23). Humans altered the evolution of crops 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. UPI. https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2017/10/23/Humans-altered-the-evolution-of-crops-10000-years-earlier-than-previously-thought/3981508767201/

National Geographic Society (2022, July 8). The Development of Agriculture. National Geographic. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/development-agriculture/

Weitzel, E. M. (2019). Declining Foraging Efficiency in the Middle Tennessee River Valley Prior to Initial Domestication. American Antiquity. https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2018.86

Garden Advice

Basics: Direct Sowing Tips

March 22, 2023 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Direct sowing crops is one of my favorite parts of spring. I get to get out into the garden and put something in the ground before many of my transplants are ready to go out. In the spring, I direct sow cool-weather crops like radishes, greens, peas, and turnips. As the spring progresses into summer, I begin direct sowing warm-weather crops like cucumbers, squash, corn, and beans. Here are a few tips to ensure you have success direct sowing crops.

Prepare Your Garden Bed

As discussed in our previous article, How to Prepare Beds, you should prepare a garden bed. Ideally, your soil should be rich, loose, and moist. This will help ensure your seeds have soft soil to push their roots into, moisture to germinate, and nutrients to grow.

Know Your Planting Date & Watch the Weather

The best time to direct sow specific crops depends on where you live and your first and last expected frost dates. For a quick look at what to plant when, you can try our garden planner app or the Farmer’s Almanac planting list by zip code. If you live in zone 7, as we do at SESE here in Virginia, you can check out a list of our recommended planting dates.

You should also keep an eye on the weather. While rain can be ideal for helping water in crops, you may want to avoid planting small seeds like lettuce right before a heavy rain which could uncover or dislodge them. A severe cold snap can slow or halt germination even with cold hardy crops. Check the forecast before planting and consider how the following days may affect your crops.

Prepare Your Seeds for Direct Sowing

Before your intended planting date, review your seed packets or look up information about your chosen crops. Some seeds need to be treated beforehand. For example, we recommend soaking Sweet Pea seeds overnight before planting.

Mark Your Rows

It’s a good idea to mark your rows carefully. This will allow you to easily weed in between rows before your crops germinate without fear of disturbing your seeds.

Plant Seeds at the Proper Depth

Your seed packet should indicate a planting depth for each crop. If you don’t have this information, a good rule of thumb is to plant your seeds at a depth equal to two or three times their width.

Be Consistent with Watering

Watering while seeds are germinating is critical. For best germination, keep the soil consistently moist. If you have a rainy spring, you may have minimal watering to do, but if not, you should check your soil everyday and water as needed. Keeping the soil consistently moist will improve germination rates.

However, you don’t want the soil to become water-logged. Your soil should feel moist after you water, but if you grab a handful and can squeeze water out of it, you have overwatered. Some seeds, like summer squash, are susceptible to rot when overwatered.

Thin Your Crops

Many crops like onions, radishes, carrots, and lettuce should be thinned as they get larger. It may seem like a waste, but your vegetables won’t properly mature if they don’t have adequate spacing. Baby greens and small onions can be harvested and used for salads at a small size.

Stay Diligent About Weeding

Weeds are fast-growing, and it’s often easy for them to overtake tiny seedlings. Keep your beds well-weeded as seedlings get established for the best production.

Add Mulch

Once your plants have grown to a couple inches, it’s a good idea to mulch around them. Mulch will save you work by suppressing weeds and keeping the soil moist.

Direct Sowing: Extra Tips & Tricks

Here are a few tricks of the trade to help you get the best results when direct sowing crops.

Cover Carrot and Lettuce Seeds with a Board or Cardboard

Carrot and lettuce seed germinates best when kept moist. After sowing carrot seeds, water them carefully and cover the rows with boards or cardboard. After a couple of days, check on them each day and remove the boards or cardboard as soon as they have begun to germinate.

Use Radishes to Mark Rows

Radishes germinate very quickly. You can toss a few radish seeds in with lettuce, carrots, or other seeds to help mark and keep track of the row while you wait for the other seeds to germinate.

Use Row Cover if You Have It

Row cover is a great way to give young seedlings a little extra protection from cool temperatures, heavy rains, and drying winds. Consider using row cover as you get crops established.

Learn to Direct Sow in Hot Weather

Later in the summer, check out Lisa and Ira’s other tips for direct sowing in hot weather. These tips are helpful for getting your fall crops started.

In some ways, direct sowing is as simple as plunging some seeds into the dirt. However, for a healthy, productive garden, it’s best to keep these tips and methods in mind as you sow your spring garden. Happy growing!

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange