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Putting "bad" "weeds" to good use

 
Posts: 52
Location: Northern Michigan (zone 5)
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All the best planting areas of my yard (in other words, anything that isn't solid clay) are full of Japanese knotweed. Looking into potential uses for it as I try to fight it back; it's almost time to chop everything before it seeds. I know it's edible, but I have far more than I can eat on my own and it's all very large and tough now. Poles for trellises/temporary fencing? Fibers for twine? I could make an insect house. I know I need to heavily mulch over the clay if I hope to ever plant on it without raised beds, but I'm more than a little wary of using the knotweed for that given its tendency to reroot. It clearly doesn't love the clay either, but I don't want to take that chance!
 
pollinator
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I try to eat it or drink it, if it's a medicinal or edible.  The chickens and ducks will typically get to it first, though.  Whatever is left is usually something too prickly or thorny or has tiny, irritating hairs on it.

Dodder has been the worst.  Looks like yellow-orange silly string, draped over everything, and it seems to double overnight.

I cut that carefully, trying not to drop a single flower, and drown it in a bucket of water, covered, for months, until it has rotted down to sludge and black liquid. Then I throw it into the compost pile.

I do NOT want to take a chance of any of it spreading.  It's THAT bad.

Some info--catch it ASAP if it ever shows up!
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/weeds-identification-gallery/dodder/#gsc.tab=0
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/weeds/dodder-weed-control.htm
 
pollinator
Posts: 123
Location: Half acre on a hill in Central Alabama, Zone 8a and 8b
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I have come to appreciate any and all invasives on my half-acre patch. All wild grasses are just mulch in the wrong spot, or begging to become compost in the middle of my keyhole gardens. Saplings are asking to be relocated, chipped, or turned into tomato cages.

Anything else goes into a bucket and gets drowned underwater to make fertilizer tea. I have several of these percolating most of the time, making the back corner of my lot smell like I have cows on the property.
 
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