Soil Management and Weed Composition

Garden Master Course excerpt: Soil Management and Weed Composition

Helen talks about her management techniques for changing the weed species' competition.  

This management paradigm can be loosely described as follows:
General decrease in small-seeded annuals,
Increase in low-growing biennials and grasses with reduced tillage, mowing, nutrient cycling, and carbon-nitrogen radio management.

My weed is not a summer annual

Less lambs quarters and pig-weed because Helen filled that niche, along with "mow-and-blow."

Observation shows increased tillage and compost equals more annual weeds.

Myself

My weed is a perennial.  Annual weeds are a spring harvest or chop and drop.

Cultivation is forking out perennial grass roots.  Biennial plants like the brassicas blooming in the background of this video are a seed crop that keeps the ground covered during the summer and can be a winter cover crop in some climates when fall sowed.  The seeds are a source of sprouts during the winter when greens are in short supply.   I cut the seed stalks just before the pods start to spilt and put them in a tote until the seeds separate easily then thresh and winnow.   the plants remain until planting time when pulled they give just enough disturbance to plant other crops.