Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
So weeds have some pretty decent skills when it comes to surviving, which is actually
good for us because of all the benefits they bring to the table. We'll never entirely get rid
of them and it is foolish to think we can or even should, but we can vastly decrease their
presence if we feel the need. There are many ways to do this. Let's just touch on one of
them for now — nutrient ratios.
Our most common pesky weeds proliferate in an imbalanced soil. A balanced soil fa-
vors the plants we want to grow, and the weeds simply do not want to grow there. If you
do a really good job of balancing the soil, plant-feeding insects will leave your plants and
move over to the weeds, as the weeds actually become sick in healthy soil. To me, this is
just so fascinating. I've had the privilege of seeing this happen several times.
While it's a good idea to avoid bringing new weeds onto our property via lawn mowers,
soil and plants from the nursery, the seeds aren't the root cause of the problem. Weed
seeds fly into our yard all the time, from many miles away. The availability of weed seeds
isn't the real reason you might have a lot of weeds in your garden. The root cause is the
nutritional imbalances and an unhealthy soil food web. In fact, if you and your neighbor's
lawn are both covered in dandelions and you correct the soil, the dandelions will magic-
ally disappear from your lawn even as the weed seeds from your neighbor continue to vis-
it.
There are three interesting nutritional insights for you to remember about weeds. These
three points have shown up as a theme throughout this topic:
1. Grassy weeds like quackgrass indicate a calcium deficiency. You may not have
enough calcium in the soil, or it could be the calcium just isn't available.
2. Broadleaf weeds like plantain indicate a deficiency of phosphate in relation to
potash. This can be fixed with supplements and microbes.
3. Succulent weeds like purslane indicate a biologically active carbon deficiency
and poor water-holding capacity. Carbohydrates and enzymes can wake up the
microbes.
Then there are even more details we've learned about specific weeds. There are weeds
for every situation: too wet or dry, poor drainage, not enough air, compaction, improper
decay of organic matter, improper nutrient exchange, and so on.
Ragweed, for example, grows late in the season in very dry soils. This isn't so much be-
cause the soil is dry, but because the dry soil causes the microbes to grind to a halt. This
causes potassium to be unavailable or improperly processed. Arden Andersen says rag-
weed growth indicates a copper deficiency, and that people who are allergic to ragweed
have a copper deficiency in their mucous membranes.
Morning glories and bindweeds grow via underground stems called rhizomes in sick,
eroded soils with poor decay of organic matter. Perhaps there was too much organic mat-
ter piled on at once and there is insufficient air and moisture content to properly decay that
