I'm committing to chop and drop this year in the veggies.

[haecklers]

In Permaculture they recommend, instead of bringing in mulch, which may need to be purchased and is work to distribute, to grow nitrogen-fixing and other plants right in your planted areas and just "chop and drop" - i.e. roughly cut them back then drop them around the plants as mulch. I see a number of benefits to this, bare soil loses the ability to support the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes that support the life and health of the plants and the fertility of the soil. When you chop the weeds close to the ground, their roots die back, feeding earthworms and opening up channels for water and oxygen to reach the roots of the vegetable plants. The weeds keep it from being a monoculture, making it harder for pests and diseases to move from plant to plant, destroying the whole row. They support beneficial insects that will feed on insect pests.

In meadows where the plants grow thickly, they are more green during droughts than the plants that are struggling in full sun with bare soil around them. All that vegetation keeps the soil cooler and keeps the moisture in.

Anyway, it's all just a theory, I've yet to meet anyone who does "chop and drop" vegetable gardening. So I'm trying it this year. I did hoe the rows just before planting to clear a space to plant the seeds and onion sets, and kept them pretty clear until MY plants got a good start. And I hand-weed around the slower-growing plants like my beets to help them keep their leaves above the "canopy". Last year my beets grew surrounded in weeds. A lot got choked out, but the ones that lived got HUGE and SWEET and had no insect problems at all. This year I intend to keep the weeds chopped back better.


The onion sets in the background, in front of them are daikon radish (and lettuce but you can't really see it). Behind the onions are the beets but they don't show at this angle. Most of the "weeds" are cilantro that I let go to seed last year. The wind blew the seeds all over the garden.

[elnini]

I think it's a good idea, as long as you chop before seeding.

[haecklers]

Even if, in the July slump where it's too muggy for me to weed as much as I should, they are able to go to seed, it shouldn't matter much because if they sprout they'll get chopped and dropped too. The main problem is keeping the grass and clover from creeping into the plant area where the small/tender plants are (squash seems to benefit from grass/clover growing around it but the large leaves make it hard to cut back the grass/clover which can hide the squash and cucumbers!)

[dunderi]

I think if you are careful about what weeds you allow to grow it can work. My father says " one year seed seven years weeds" and while cilantro is not bad I'd hate to be letting cobblers pegs, khaki burr or pig weed steal the nutrients from my spinach.

Growing green manures intentionally, especially nitrogen fixing legumes like alfalfa is a great idea to help break the monocilture, if you're a fan of broadcast sowing you can have that amongst your vegetables.

I tend to keep a small but intensely cropped garden, where the plants are very close together, lots of varieties but I do still fertilize and mulch.

All the weeds around here have prickles... lol

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

[Debbie Lincoln]

I'll be watching your results. We just harrowed our big garden - back to bare soil between the rows. And it rained nearly 5 inches last night. You can imagine the dirt that washed away. If the weeds were still in place, we wouldn't have lost any....

[simplynaturalfarm]

the only problem with this is competition for nutrients, sunlight and moisture if you are not in a high water area. And a lot of veggies don't compete well with weeds. And in my area, the weeds spread more via root than seed, so you have to dig them out or they take over - one year of cutting and dropping and my back garden is a lush green lawn . . . . seeds (carrots, beets, lettuce, onions etc) do not compete in that situation.
Planting intentional green manure in rows works better - especially buckwheat and clover etc.
Last year my grass garden took over and we just mowed it, the tomatoes stayed nice and moist while the weeded ones beside needed watering. Nothing else did well though. But we have a lot of crabgrass and weeds that spread like crazy via roots and I have to dig those roots up normally to keep them out.
The picture is gorgeous though - I love covered soil! And I hope to hear excellent results from it!

[finallyfarming]

I planted a lot of turnips with peas and sunflowers in all my empty areas last year. It was a tangled mess with the weeds but when I found a turnip it was always the most wonderful thing in the world to eat. Thanks for the remind, I bought some turnip, lettuce, alfalfa and clover seed for my husband to plant with grass seed, but it looks like he isn't getting around to it in time. I will fill between the rows and then harvest (along with the Lady's Thumb that will take over no matter what I do) to feed the animals by hand all summer. I do think about how amazing those turnips were from time to time and didn't know why! Thanks again for bringing this up!

[AnnB (NE)]

It would result in a patch of Bind Weed (wild Morning Glory) here! Every cut piece forms a new plant.

Ann B

[farmerkate]

I think before I committed to chop-and-drop, I would keep at least a small section of each variety weed free, so I could judge whether it was really a good idea. It just goes so much against all we've ever learned about the weeds competing for the sun, water and nutrients, and I wouldn't be willing to risk all my crops. Some weeds, besides competing, also put out a hormone that retards the growth of other plants. Onions are especially victimized by this. Please keep us informed on if this actually works for you--I HATE weeding!

[eljay]

What are you chopping with? I'm picturing a weed whacker in hand going up and down the rows. I like that idea.

We're going the black plastic/landscape fabric route this year, and while I'll be glad of getting some control over the thistle it won't be nearly so pretty as your garden will be. I do like a pretty vegetable garden.

[kristi]

I'm very curious to see how this works out for you. We put down cardboard and newspaper then a truckload of rabbit manure and Bermuda jigs hay for the winter. I planted in that and mulched again with the hay. No seeds and there are very few weeds growing up around the edges. Easy enough to keep pulled back. I like the idea though of your chop and drop. Let us know how that works for you.

[Jenn]

Ruth Stout did it for YEARS. I always use the weeds as mulch. It rebalances the soil faster than any thing else, just add egg shells. If you mulch with spent hay, then add the weeds to the top of the mulch and they wont regrow. If you have a toxic weed problem, you may have underlying issues as well.

-Jenn

[haecklers]

eljay, I did landscaping fabric in my last garden and the thistle grew through it. Then you could only cut it off at the top of the fabric because that stuff is so tough. By the end of summer, the wood chip mulch we had put on top of the landscape fabric had broken down enough that weeds were sprouting on top of it as well.

I'm using pruning shears to clip it back. So far I'm getting away with doing it once a week. Most of the plants are tall enough now that they're still above the weeds in that amount of time, tho the beets are struggling a little. But without weeds the slugs ate almost all of them last year and this year they're still there, so I think that's progress!

Another garden still has bare soil in about half of it, and it dries out so fast between rains that it's frustrating. All the rest of the yard is still damp but I'm watering my new tomato plants! I used this seed starting medium to start them indoors and I guess it has no fertilizer in it, the tomatoes are barely growing, tho most have some root tips coming out of the peat pots now so I'm hoping they take off soon!

With the potatoes, some are in a patch of creeping Charlie and they seem the least bothered by potato bugs - the plants are large and dark green; and they were from the last of the seed potatoes - the ones unlikely to grow!

One problem is that I've got lots of volunteers showing up - tomato plants, squash, etc. and if I let them all grow I won't have room for the stuff I planted. I hate killing volunteers, tho!

Another problem - unrelated to chop and drop, except marginally, is that the stupid chickens have uprooted almost a whole (small) field of corn! They walk around grabbing the plants and pulling them out, then just leave them laying on the ground! Maybe if there had been more plants growing they wouldn't have been able to find the corn so easily! I think I've lost 3/4 of the field, tho they seem to be big enough now to be safe from the stupid birds!

[ajplmama]

I like using a green mulch when I can. We have a lot of weeds that spread by roots rather than seeds though so I end up with quite a sod on top that's nearly impossible to plant in to after the second year. Last year I wasn't able to keep the beds weeded with the weather we had. this year is slow starting and I hope it's better but I'm planning to mulch with seaweed. I'm still undecided what I like best but I'd love to see your progress through the summer.

[cdmoi]

A couple thoughts to add to the mix--(if they apply to where you live)--we're really "big" on preventing any bare soil, so in the fall, we rake ALL of our leaves onto the garden areas, which are quite large. That keeps the soil covered. Then, in the spring, when the grass is rapidly growing and we need to cut once a week, we use the grass to mulch the early plantings (onions, brassicas, lettuce), raking the leftover/unbroken-down leaves onto the walkways. The grass creates the best mulch ever as it creates a tight covering and lasts quite some time (we mulch thickly). This way, too, as it breaks down it feeds the soil. If you planted green covers like the buckwheat that simplynaturalfarm mentioned in walkways and saved your leaves/grass to keep the plants mulched, you could avoid allowing weeds to compete nutritionally. That said, I love that you are experimenting and you may have results I couldn't have dreamed of. I used weeds one year as I was gardening on a friend's land and spending money on mulch hay was out of the question, but I didn't have much success with it as it seemed to really make more work. It worked best in the field with winter squashes as I pulled them (instead of cutting), and laid them under the vines as they spread, but all that weeding by hand got to be an enormous amount of work.

Looking forward to all you observe!
moi

[haecklers]

This is the row of kale/onions before Monday, when I "chopped" and today when I hand-pulled what was too close to the plants to chop and thinned the kale.


I got this huge bowl of kale thinnings for our dinner, almost all perfect leaves with no dirt or insect damage


and here is the row after (you can see the onions now! They're small because I planted them *very* late, then they wilted for awhile because I wasn't on top of watering them)


And the "after" of the row of onions (planted at the right time) from the photo above


The peas are over 2 feet high, and I put a wide path between the rows. In the middle of the path I set out the cucumbers and squash that I started indoors (they're pale green due to the seed starting mix having NO nutrients, never using that again!) The peas should be about done by the time the squash are too big to easily get to the pea plants, then I'll yank out the peas and their fences and let the squash and cucumbers have that area.


ETA: it took me about 1/2 hour Monday to go through with the hedge shears and chop the weeds from the paths and around the rows. Part of that time was pulling all the radishes that were ready, thinning the lettuce and picking out the inner leaves so I could leave the roots and outer leaves on the ground in the garden. I waited a day for everything I dropped to wilt so I could see what was left, and today I hand-pulled what was too close to chop (after cutting through a couple onions I couldn't see the first time!) I spent an hour today but it was mostly thinning the kale and picking the leaves off of the stems so they could be ready to eat. My plan is to only work on the garden two days a week, in the mornings when it's cool, other than harvesting things as needed and maybe watering when it needs it. & BTW, I found an awesome recipe for the 2 cups of radishes I harvested - melt 2 tablespoons of butter and sauté 2 cups of sliced radishes with 2 cloves of minced garlic until they start to brown, salt & pepper to taste. It's really good! Mine are the French Breakfast radishes, I really like them - 4 inches or more long, some over an inch wide, and still tender and mild.

[treatlisa]

Interested in your experiment Renate... and love seeing the pictures of your beautiful garden! (I'm a sucker for garden pictures Keep us posted!

[elnini]

It's not classically tidy, but it's the results that count !

[MameeT]

Going to love to keep an eye on this post! We are trying leaf mulch from our hillside and cat tails from our pond to cover our soil in the garden this year. We are very behind schedule because we have been putting up a hoop house - I will post pictures when it is all in. We are also creating an insect habitat out of old pallets for the garden, trying to attract good insects, bees, birds, frogs, etc. This was my inspiration for the habitat: www.metrofieldguide.com/insect-hotels-mansions-and-other-dwellings/ Ours is a little crazier... I love color so did a crazy paint job! We also created a much smaller habitat for our separate herb garden.

[simplynaturalfarm]

The other thing about the drop idea is you HAVE to have a long enough season - we can barely grow some things here and they can't have any competition to grow well. Being a permaculture, sustianable ag, Bill morrison fan I tried that one year and did not get any squash, tomatoes, peppers etc becuase of the competition for heat and nutrients - having bare soil around helps the temps to boot, although it does use a lot more watering.

And in re. to your soil having issues if weeds grow (toxic or otherwise). It is not that your soil is toxic or unbalanced, it is that soil period wants to cover any bare ground and the first things to grow are the hardy fast growing weeds because the cover the soil the fastest. Next year it is the grasses etc.

I should take a picture of my flower bed that was chop and drop last year. This year I could not find the dirt for the thick grass roots (although the grass was not thick itself!), and I had to actually pull off the top 1 inch of roots mixed with soil to reach dirt for planting. a lot of work if you are growing perennials that do NOT compete well with crab, quack and johnson grass - our main "weeds" in the garden here!

My pessimistic side says that you have to have just the right climate for that to work - I have tried Square foot gardening with very poor results simply due to wrong varieties (who doesn't try to make it work with the non recommended varieties), and too much green cover to heat the soil.

I think each of us has to experiment to find what works in our area and microclimate. This year I am not mulching and I'm spacing things further apart than I normally do while interplanting the same way I normally do (I am a crowder)- I grow everything as "organic" and sustainable as possible and why am I bringing in straw mulch from local farmers who do not . . pragmatic me would potentially consider it again if it wasn't for the fact that there is SOMETHING off with the straw - I can't grow anything in it. it kills everything, stunts everything and I have never had this happen before - admittedly the last place I lived I had my own barley straw for everything and that obviousy makes the difference. Keeps moisture in, weeds down etc and here it simply stunts everything.

My Mom and I used to mulch with wilted grass (we had a large property we mowed JUST for the grass for mulch). Man did that improve the soil. WE used rye grass, buckwheat, clover and other things for living mulches that could be cut down without regrowth in our cold climate, and also incorporated to add organic matter and phosphorus to the soil.

If you have the right tools, weeding is not the chore it feels like for most of us - Eliot Coleman spends about 3 minutes per week on each of his long beds because he has good tools. And finding alternative places to grow things is great - this year I'm growing squash in my orchard as I don't like to mow in between trees so used my old hay to mulch and just dug large round hills in between trees (the trees are only 3 years old so not shading anything) and the squash can vine anywhere it likes.

I Love the pictures - I absolutely hate bare soil and do not make a good farmer that way.