First, Weeds - March 22

Gardener's-Eye View of Competition

 The first step in starting a farm is making a place to plant. Neither of these pictures do justice to the proposed space for my pocket farm, because much of what needs to be dug out to make the soil available is still dormant under the surface.
    There are three kinds of "weed" any gardener must contend with: woody plants (these have heavy root systems and perennial tops above ground: anything from established trees to the blackberry and black-cap briars and grape vines pictured here), perennial herbaceous plants (whose tops die off in winter but whose roots store up energy to regrow the plant the following spring), and annual plants (those that grow from seed in the spring and are killed by the frost or winter). I know just by looking at this cover of twiggy tops that the soil beneath my proposed growing space is a thick mass of mostly perennial weed roots.

Thorns and Thistles

     Weeds are part of the original literal curse of Adam. There's good reason why the God of Genesis tells "sinful Adam" not only will he have to grow food on his own from now on, but that the land will bear "thorns and thistles." Any farmer reading those words knows what that curse amounts to in painful slivers, cut hands and unending hard work. My pocket farm on day 1 is right out of Chapter and Verse, with an almost Biblical serving of thistles, goldenrod, and goutweed.
     Weeds are more—much more—than a boring impediment to pretty plants and tidy spaces. It is almost more important and helpful to know and understand the botanical workings of the plants you don't want in a space than the ones you do want there. Why? Because weeds tell you about your soil: its fertility, its history, its pH, its potential. Moreover, each kind of weed has a different way of persisting. (The very trait defines them as weeds, as opposed to desirables. Even Himalayan blue poppies would be a "weed" if they grew in similarly adaptable and prolific ways as crabgrass, lamb's quarters and chickweed.) What is a weed's lifecycle? How does it reproduce? How does it coexist with other plants? This all might sound boring to the weekend gardener. But those weeds are the first way of knowing a soil, and they will, like it or not, be the most constant of companions every day of the gardening year. The less you understand of them, the more companionable they are likely to be, because you won't know what you are fighting and how best to eliminate it.
     What does this have to do with breaking ground at my tiny proposed farm?
      Everything.
     Thistles are tough. They are equally at ease growing from seed (as the upstarts hiding out in my lawn waiting to stab little bare feet can testify). They send down long, brittle roots, finding places to thread under and through (rocks, buried tree branches, old roots, submerged trash), making extrication difficult. The smallest piece of root can form a strong new plant, even springing up from a foot underground, so any of those brittle pieces left behind become a means of multiplying thistles by thistles. If artichokes (another member of the thistle family) spread half as easily, we'd be eating them breakfast, lunch and dinner.
     Goldenrod clings tenaciously. It sends thick runner roots in all directions from the parent plant, so that where there was one stem of goldenrod one year, there will be a fairy ring of them the next. A field of goldenrod is the result of these overlapping, interwoven circles. I've pulled out goldenrod runners two feet long ferreting out the best place to surface and flourish.
     Both are no equal to goutweed (or bishop's weed, as it is sometimes called). Aegopodium repens is it's Latin name, "repens" because of its creeping habit, Aegopodium because... well, I don't speak Latin, but I can imagine this is what the first Roman boarding students called that kid who was boastful, obnoxious, persistent, and always in someone's face — the one nobody could stand as a roommate. The tiniest, tiniest nubbin of its slender root will make a strong new plant, which will reproduce endlessly and everywhere, laying down a mass of roots so thick it's difficult to get a shovel through the tangle underground. Sun, shade, good soil or bad, goutweed isn't picky. Spray it with herbicide ( I have even resorted to the evil R-product to try killing it)  and it turns the other cheek faster than a field of GMO corn.
      How to turn a 30' X 27' space from a triumvirate of these adversaries into open soil? (Okay, okay - I know even "weed" is a human judgement call and every plant has not only some use to humans but also a crucial role in the greater ecosystem. But I also know I can't sell goutweed, goldenrod or thistles at a farm market, other than to a few gouty folk and those longing for the days of Adam. Out they must come.) For about $80 a day plus gas and noise, I can rent a sod cutter, which makes short work of turning lawn grass into bare (compacted) garden space. But there are three problems with going that route. These roots run deeper than grass sod. In some places, they would lift in one slice like turf but in others,  the soil is too loose a network of roots below and dry growth above to lift out, rather than mix in. Oh, and that $80? It's a big chunk of my $500 budget to spend on one tool. (More on this in the next post.) Nix on the sod cutter.
     Big fields are turned to cropland by plowing and harrowing or by rototilling. I could rent a tiller for the same price as that sod cutter I'm not springing for. This would be a bad, bad thing. Remember what I said about those tiny pieces of root? Rototilling would essentially amount to a day spent on a big dividing-and-propagating effort. I would turn a thatch of goutweed and a patch of thistles into a big, nicely aerated nursery area for a million propagated gout and thistle youngsters. Yoicks!
      The best easy way to deal with perennial weeds is probably to till, plant a series of quick-growing annual smother crops, mow or till, repeat two more times, follow up with a thick winter cover crop, and try agin next year. Alternatively, I could cover the whole thing in black plastic, which is a good smother method, too, but doesn't help the soil and also means waiting a year.
     The next, and only, other way is to dig out those roots. Every one of 'em.
     It seems reasonable at the time. By the second shovelful, when my patient spouse comes out to check on me, I confess, "This is crazy."
     It is, too. The 30' X 27' space looks awfully big. But as Ma said in the Little House books, "Where there's a will, there's a way." She also said, "What must be done is best done cheerfully." She also probably said a lot of things under her breath, but those have not been printed in the Little House books.   I say, Bloom where you are planted, and put that shovel to the dirt for a third time.