Subject: Re: [permaculture] weeds?

From: stephan leimroth <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 14:23:26 -0700 (PDT)

greetings!

i have a weed problem. 
not just with our local, demonic weed being highly
invasive and difficult to control but with controlling
them in the first place.  on our site, heavily
miss-grazed in the past, star thistle is insiduous. 
but it grows so well and thrives where nothing else
will (not even mustard), that i just hate to pull it. 
it seems so crucial to the development (and recovery)
of the soil, to getting the nutrient cycle going.  

i've never seen any nutrient deficiency signs on a
thistle.  it must have tremendous power to pull up the
soil nutrients that are in scarce or out of balance
supply here.  it thrives where everything else would
be hard-pressed to even germinate.

i have a high regard for 'weeds'.  one of my fantasies
is to be able to see the natural plant succession
evolve given no pulling, spraying, or cultivating of
these pioneer species.  the problem of course is our
limited life span.  how long would it take for the
'native' species to re-establish?  or would nature
find peace with a mono crop of weeds?

when i was in new zealand, there was a big campaign to
eradicate wild ginger.  the stuff just keeps growing
on top of itself to form a massive root ball, almost
impossible to be rid of it.  but i saw it as a great
healing process;  it seemed like the ginger was
growing in places where previous sheep grazing had
wiped out all the top soil.  it seemed if allowed to
run its course, eventually there would be a tremendous
amount of organic matter in the soil.

is my thinking totally miss-guided? am i still just
too much of an idealist? does anyone have ideas on
this?  

kind regards,

stephan.

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