Subject: Ozark Challenges

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:02:04 -0500 (EST)

The growing season is coming on-line, and I find myself once again
confronting two of our eternal "challenges" in the Ozarks:  ticks and bermuda
grass.  Now, I know some people say you can control ticks with guineas or
chickens or ducks or geese, but I've never known anyone in real life who had
any success with these techniques.  As for bermuda, I've tried everything
from Round-up to buried flashing to digging out beds and laying landscape
fabric down first.  Eventually, bermuda snakes its way in.   How are you
folks dealing with these challenges?  Rebecca Bryant

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From: Mark Ludwig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 16:04:58 -0600

At 01:18 PM 3/17/97 -0800, you wrote:
>At 03:02 PM 3/17/97 -0500, [email-masked] wrote:
>>fabric down first.  Eventually, bermuda snakes its way in.  
Snip
>
>1)  I, like you, buried 8" wide aluminum flashing all around the garden.
>Back-breaking work, especially in a southern California summer when the
>ground was hard as the proverbial rocks.  But this kept 90%+ of it outside
>the garden.  (And I had to use the aluminum flashing; my first trial was
>with 4" bender board, which the Bermuda grass merely laughed at and
>shouldered aside.)
>

>
>There's probably a secret Permaculture technique for turning Bermuda grass
>into a cash crop, but I don't know what it is.
>
>I have very little experience with ticks, so can't help there.
>
>Good luck...if I could singlehandedly outlaw the selling of Bermuda grass by
>nurseries, I would.
>
>Loren
>--
>Loren Davidson      

Folks,
Here in the midwest our constant garden foe is quack grass.  It has a
similar root system, though it's a cool season grass and starts early in the
season where I suppose the bermuda grass is more a summer menace.  Any how,
some friends have had good luck allowing pigs to root it out and following
up with a cover crop of rye or buckwheat.  By shifting your graden space
around you should be able to stay ahead of much of it while getting next
year's plot ready.  I find a lot of the trouble stems from our efforts to
clear our garden beds of roots while ignoring the paths.  If the pigs were
allowed to clean up the path areas (or if you did it) you might have longer
term sucess.
We also have a lot of ticks and have tried burning the grass and then
following with poultry.  The problem is that there are so many other things
to eat for them that the ticks just aren't attractive enough to really take
a hit.  Burning near the house is a little nerve racking too, and seems to
be of limited effectiveness.  My sugestion?  Daily naked inspections with
someone you love (or at least a tall mirror)  ;<)
Mark Ludwig
Student - UW School for Beginning Dairy Farmers
King of the weed pullers -  Otter Creek Organic Farm
Grains, beef, compost and ?

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:22:59 -0500 (EST)

Bermuda Grass is a distinct challenge. The chemicals supposed to control it
do more harm that good. I don't really know any way to control it but to pay
attention to trimming, cutting it really close to catch the runners.
Thatching it every year or so. 

However, From a permaculture perspective, a really heavy sheet mulching on
top of cardboard, and newspaper--then about a foot of dense mulching
materials like lots of chipping stuff heavy with redwood, cedar, pine--other
aromatics and then layers of straw not hay, especially not hay. If you can
get rice, wheat, oats - the more the merrier. Make it damp as you build it up
and keep it damp if you can. Let the sun do its work. Stand back for a couple
of years. I like to scatter wheat seeds on top along with other grains plus
some wildflowers too. Favas love the whole business and add their good stuff
into what becomes a fertile wonderland with bermuda way down in the bottom.

The more main line folks will cover it with a heavy guage black plastic and
let it sit for a year or so. Gas it to death, I suppose.

For the really ambitious, dig  it out to at least 18 inches and get every bit
out before burning it--yes, burning it. The ashes then can be added back to
your compost pile. Waste not, want not.

Ticks? I try to live where they aren't. Hard to be friendly with ticks.

Milo Clark
Berkeley CA USA

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:41:45 -0500 (EST)

Spreading plastic all over the ground is spreading chemicals all over the
ground.  Plastic is not stable, but photodecays and spontaneously decays,
depending on the kind of plastic, etc.  Volatiles get into the ground.  In my
view, this practice is hostile to permaculture.  I know that serious
permaculturists disagree--I'
m responding to such a viewipoint.  My purpose is to state a viewpoint that
needs expression, not start a flame war or even a debate.

The facts are obvious.  People will opt for the convenience of plastic or for
a more conservative definition of permaculture.  That's a pretty clear
choice.  There is no missing or hidden information needed to make it.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981). Next  correspondence
permaculture training by email starts in Aug., '97. Internships available.
Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 2052, Ocala FL 34478 USA
 [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.

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From: "Steve Diver" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:18:19 +0000

A few observations on sheet mulching, as a follow-up to Ozark 
Challenges and the control of bermudagrass: 

The permaculture way is to go with current energy (i.e., renewable 
rather than fossil fuel), to reduce pollution, to avoid toxics, and to 
use organic and biological resources as much as possible. 

In this context, plastic is a poor choice as a sheet mulch in 
comparison to an organic sheet mulch system based on layers of newspaper 
or cardboard topped with leaves, straw, or hay.  Thus, I think it 
was helpful to get that message from Dan Hemmenway about permaculture 
and plastic (attached below). 

Taking into account where people are on the scale of permanance, 
I also think it appropriate to present a number of non-chemical or 
low-input options and let people work within the framework of a 
transition to permanance.  It seems natural that permanance will 
grow on them once they have experienced the alternative.  And, if we 
have a chance to present the holistic or deeper framework that permaculture   
has to offer, we can help in this shift at a personal and community 
level.

As a farm advisor and permaculture teacher, the critical thing in 
my way of thinking in terms of bermudagrass control is that the 
novice gardener/farmer understands the urgency of keeping on 
top of this plant that at one time was commonly known 
as "Devil's Weed." 

As an example, a friend looked askance at the roadside flower bed I 
established last year with a strip of Sunbelt fabric weed barrier 
10'x90' in size.  She wanted to know why I didn't just mulch that patch 
of bermudagrass and Johnsongrass with straw.  

The reason is that straw alone would have resulted in a nightmare, 
because the bermuda would grow right through it...and the 
hard-to-find native plants, prairie wildflowers, herbaceous 
perennials, and herbs that were planted there would have vanished, 
since it was a low-maintenance bed by design.  On the other hand, 
a "sheet" of newspaper or cardboard underlying the straw mulch would 
shift the whole equation by providing a barrier underneath the mulch  

This seems like a simple matter, but it is critical that some 
"system" of weed control is understood and implemented before putting 
a tremendous amount of effort into a doomed project. 

In support of the organic sheet mulch method, I offer three items: 

1.  
One of the best little articles and descriptions of the organic 
sheet mulch system was in the newsletter of The Permaculture Activist
about a year ago.  It described all the wonders of microbial and soil 
life as a result of the breakdown and decomposition from the organic 
materials etc. 

2.  
The City of Fayetteville, Arkansas is fortunate to have in its 
horticulture department a few really progressive women in key 
positions.  In the most prominent and beautiful park in town, 
Lisa P. the city gardener had a very successful experience in 
controlling bermudagrass via the organic sheet mulch method.  She 
covered a huge bed area with cardboard, and topped it with straw and 
wood chips for one whole growing season.  This year the weeds are gone 
and the soil looks great and it is ready to plant.  Thus, the organic 
sheet mulch method is a viable option for municipalities as well as 
for home gardeners.   

3.  
Rebecca Bryant, a fellow environmental activist from Fayetteville 
who posted the original message on Ozark Challenges, 
I am happy to report, has done a very nice job of adopting the 
organic sheet mulch to a good size portion of an overgrown garden.  
After taking one look at the heavy layer of cardboard, soon to be 
topped with leaves and straw etc., I am confident that bermuda will 
be gone at the end of the growing season and the worms will have a 
feast on the organic decay. 

Steve Diver
Fayetteville, Arkansas  

> From:          [email-masked]
> Date:          Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:41:45 -0500 (EST)
> To:            [email-masked], [email-masked],
>                [email-masked]
> Cc:            [email-masked]
> Subject:       Re: Ozark Challenges

--
[email-masked]

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From: "Steve Diver" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:18:19 +0000

1.  

2.  

3.  

Steve Diver
Fayetteville, Arkansas  

--
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:46:12 -0400 (EDT)

Alas, Bermuda grass and nut sedge are destroyers of gardens in Houston too.
One effective, simple and productive remedy is to plant the area in sweet
potatoes in May (here)--perhaps importing to the site sandy loam hills if
necessary-- then mulching heavily with cardboard/newspaper and 3 inches of
hay/other mulch. All Bermuda and 98% nut sedge will be gone by December
digging time and a large production as well. Once these grasses are out, we
use raised beds with frames--wood/concrete blocks-- to keep out stolons.  Bob
Randall/Houston