thoughts on weeds

Red Root Pig Weed

What is a "weed" anyway? Most of the the definition I see is "a plant where you don't want it". Some people seem to think everything that they didn't plant is a weed and must be totally eradicated.

For me most plants that others would call weeds, I just call doing their jobs. They are working hard for me and my garden. They are covering the soil to help prevent erosion and evaporation. Even if I've neglected the garden a bit and it is 'weedy' I don't go in and cut everything down at once. There are hundreds of lady bugs and praying mantis and other creatures living in those weeds. If I'm clearing out the garden I do it one bed at a time. Not only does that spread the work out, it also gives those creatures a chance to move out and find a new home. It just kills me to see people clear cut large areas of vegetation, they are losing a lot of beneficial insects. And if they rake up and throw away all that vegetaion, then they are also losing soil fertility.

Some plants are delicious to eat and can be even more nutritious than the ones you planted on purpose! A great example is lambs quarters, Chenopodium alba. This is a great thing to have growing everywhere! According to this wikipedia article   Lambs Quarters has significant amounts of vitamin A and C, with (73% and 96% of your daily requirement per 100 grams of raw plant) along with being a good source of several other nutrients. Steamed Lambs Quarters leaves are, to me, indistinguishable in taste from spinach.  Lambs Quarters is related to Quinoa and also has nutritious seeds.

I pick Lambs Quarters for cooked greens for myself and cut it for my chickens. Cutting a few inches above the ground will allow it to grow back to be cut again.

lambs quarters

Redroot pigweed, Amaranthus retroflexus, is another nutritious "weed", whose leaves and seeds are good sources of various nutrients. (reference http://web.ku.edu/~aihd/foods/Pigweed.html)

Pigweed leaves can be used like spinach, but has a 'chewier' texture. Larger leaves can have the stem and mid rib removed to make them more tender.

Pigweed, in good soil with plenty of water can grow 6-8 feet tall so I do pull out seedlings in my growing beds. I do leave it around the edges of the beds and wherever else it shows up. Like cultivated Amaranths pigweed is a hot weather crop and thrives during our monsoon rains. I cut it back as necessary and feed a lot of it to my chickens, knowing next week that there will be more.

Henbit and chickweed are two cool weather weeds that blanket the ground in winter and early spring. Chickweed has a pleasant green taste when raw and is nice in salads. Henbit is related to mint but has a strong medicinal taste and smell which I'm not fond of. I feed both to the chickens. They make a good ground cover and I often leave them in the growing beds between other plants as a living mulch.

Henbit

So it's good to know your weeds and what they can do for you. Don't be so quick to pull them out, they are busy working for you and your garden. If nothing else they will make a lot of biomass for your compost pile or can be pulled up and layed back down as part of the mulch.

Garden Tour

Front yard path

Things are really moving along here so I thought I would give you a bit of an update.

Here's the front yard path, oreganos in the pots, sweet peas on the arch, the red farther down are oriental poppies. The tall tree, right mid ground is the apple in the driveway bed. The tree on the left in the back ground is a self sown elderberry which is blooming. Remember you can click on any picture to see it bigger.

Bonanza Dwarf peaches

The little Bonanza peach tree has a good fruit set.

Salad Bowl Lettuce

The patch of Salad Bowl lettuce in the shady front yard bed is about big enough to start picking.

Granada, the $2 rose

The Granada rose that I got for $2 last fall has some buds showing. It is dwarfed by the bearded iris and green onion going to seed.

pink rose

This big pink rose grows at the end of the path in the first picture. I don't remember it's name, I'll have to check my garden book. It has some fragrance, but not that much.

potato bed

Here's the potato bed out front that I planted in March. I gave the bed a good soaking yesterday and mulched it with some straw. I'll have to buy another bale this week to finish up.

potted potatoes

Out back on the patio the potted potatoes are doing well.

Currant Tomato

I potted up a Currant tomato into this planter and gave the very last plant to my sister when she came to visit yesterday. Do you recognize what the support is?

Princepe Borghese, green tomatoes

Also on the patio the other tomatoes are growing like crazy, the little Princepes are loaded with green fruit.

Potted Peppers

I moved the pepper plants on up to one gallon pots yesterday.

Back yard garden

Here's an over view of the back yard garden. You can see the greenhouse on the left. On the fence left of the gate is the Fuji apple I planted this year. On the right side is a Grimes Golden planted in 2009. The beds down the left side from front to back, Red Pontiac potatoes, three sisters, lettuce and turnips, then bolting lettuce. On the right, bolting lettuce, tomatoes, onion and parsnip, brassicas. Going across most of the back are the Mammoth Melting peas and behind them, the bean trellis.

Red Pontiac potatoes planted in January

 

 

Three sisters, the beans aren't up yet

Bolting parsnips

tomato bed 8 Amish Paste

Broccolis

bolting lettuce, chard, red amaranth

Mammoth Melting Peas

Greenhouse, cantaloupe, nasturtiums, chard

strawberries

Epazote and purple petunia

This Epazote and purple petunia volunteered in a pot of lettuce.

The red mustard is flowering

beans and cantaloupe in the coldframe

Purple bean flowers

Red root pigweed, a wild amaranth

With the warmer weather comes a new edible weed, red root pigweed, a type of amaranth. The small leaves are good in salad and when they are bigger, as cooked greens. In good soil with extra water it will go to 6-8 feet.

Lamb's Quarters

Lambs Quarters is another edible weed, used the same as the pigweed. Where it grows in drier poorer soil its a bit tough so I cut those for the rabbits.

Harvest Monday

home grown celery

Welcome to another Harvest Monday! Sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions this is a great blog hop to visit with gardeners from all around the world. (you don't have to be a blogger to go visiting, either).

With the lovely warm days and cool but not freezing nights the garden is really picking up, both out doors and in the greenhouse.

Besides my usual salad mix of lettuces, chickweed, lambs quarters, chard, spinach, sorrel, cilantro, I had a few mache plants this week too, just forgot to get a pic of them.

I cut one whole celery plant as a veggie for soup because it looked like it just might be trying to bolt. I haven't bothered with any blanching strategy on this celery, so I don't know if possible bolting or not blanching was responsible for the slightly bitter flavor or something else. But it wasn't bitter in the soup, so it's all good.

tiny broccoli head

The broccoli continues to put out side shoots but they also have just dime to quarter size heads on them. I've decided I don't really care, I just slice up the whole shoot, stem, leaf, itty bitty floret and all. Actually they say the leaves have more nutrition in them than the heads anyway.

snow peas

I've been picking a handful of snow peas every couple of days from the plants in the greenhouse.

greens!

I really love the Giant Red Mustard; a bit too spicy to eat raw in salad, it's wonderfully mild and sweet when steamed or braised. I've been picking mixed greens for cooking a couple of days a week. This photo show from left to right, Giant Red Mustard, a tend tip from wild Lamb's Quarters and some green chard called Perpetual Spinach. I usually chop them all together and braise in chicken stock, sometimes adding a handful or two of shredded cooked chicken meat at the last minute. Some times I also have kale in the mix.

Chicken and greens!

Yellow turnips, white & purple carrots, red & white radishes

There are still a few root crops in the garden, some Golden Globe turnips, some white carrots (maybe Belgian whites), some Purple Dragon carrots, radishes of several colors. The carrots were volunteers at the edge of a bed from plants grown last in 2009. I got busy and forgot about them....





And then I have literally hundreds of baby plants indoors under the lights, you can see some of them here in my post about soil blocks.

Harvest Monday

lettuce & other greens, violas, radishes

Welcome to Harvest Monday, a great blog hop hosted by Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions. Stop over there and visit with amazing gardeners from around the world.

This week besides the usual salads of baby lettuces, chickweed, red mustard, cilantro, sorrel, arugula and a few radishes, I harvested a bunch of carrots, some even actually a respectable size.

carrots

I also harvested some Giant Red Mustard from the large tub in the greenhouse along with some spinach and lamb's quarters to steam together, that was very yummy, but I forgot to take a pic!

Dwarf Grey Sugar pea blossom

All sorts of goodies are promising in the greenhouse, the peas have begun blooming so hopefully there will be a few pods on next weeks harvest tally.

Little Marvel Peas in Bloom

Ferry Morse Gourmet Lettuce Mix in a tub

F-B, onion, radish, misticanza lettuce, chard in the greenhouse bed

Wall pots of Sweet Alyssum smell like honey

All over Italy nearly every house and apartment, no matter how small the space has flowers growing in pots, especially geraniums. In many of the towns blank walls are covered with wall pots similar to these, full of blooms. Theirs tend to be larger and made of terracotta, some of them glazed and painted Majolica style. These are only about 13 inches across the widest part and are made of terra cotta colored plastic. I do like that they have built in saucers. They were easy to hang on two screws or nails in the wall. I got mine from Amazon after searching almost every where for them. They are not very expensive and I'm going to order some more. Wall pots are a great solution for those of us that are space challenged! I don't want the moss lined baskets because it is way to hot and dry here-those things would have to be watered three times a day even in the shade.