Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chickweed (a.k.a., common chickweed,
starwort, starweed, winterweed, satin flower)
Chickweed is an annual or winter annual. In some cooler areas it survives through sum-
mer and behaves like a short-lived perennial. In the manuals they call it
Stellaria media
,
but on the lawn it is a bearcat. It is weakly tufted. It reproduces by seeds and all sorts of
creeping stems, rooting at the nodes. As a universal weed, chickweed grows from coast to
coast, border to border, seemingly impervious to heat and snow. Once established, it can
cover the soil like an army blanket, keeping out air and sunlight and water. Chickweed is
the antithesis of crabgrass. Chickweed grows where there is a good amount of working or-
ganic matter on the surface of the soil — more so than at great depths. It is frequently a
case of too much grass clippings not being consumed, a lot of peat or manure on a garden,
with acids coming off organic matter flushing out minerals that become a little too hot for
grasses or vegetables. This situation issues an invitation for chickweed to set up shop. So-
metimes organic matter on a lawn decays for a week, dries up, gets wet again, and once
more dries. With organic matter decaying in a detoured media, chickweed takes off if the
pH is right, that is, not too low or too high. By way of contrast, crabgrass reflects soil that
is tight, crusty and sedimentary. Acids from partially decayed organic material influence re-
lease of excess amounts of trace minerals that are needed, and it does this in a good colloid-
al way. It is possible to release the minerals but not have enough colloidal material in the
soil to hold those minerals. They become water soluble and disperse, and the next stage of
degeneration begins. Chickweed, crabgrass, quackgrass, nettles, plantain, buckhorn, dan-
delions and others grow the “green flags'' of nature's system of limitations.
