How Weeds Helped Grow Our Squash Plants
We used the weed growth to help protect our plants for the extreme heat by providing shade and also shelter from the sun’s UV rays.
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9 Comments
I generally struggled to grow melons in our harsh short climate, but the year that life took over and so did the weeds. I grew the best melons ever. The weeds not only apparently sheltered the melons; they also hid them from the raccoons and pheasants.
It really opened my eyes to the natures wonderous interrelationships and how our unnatural orderly gardening is not necessarily the best.
Thank you for doing a video showing this.
Thanks its the first video like this Ive noticed and I think you have a good point to make about the weeds. We try to mass control the garden but working in with what nature does could be a greater benefit than traditionally wiping out all the weeds around our gardens. Ive discovered also that what we call weeds, have grown up high in severe heat when it was too hot for me to do any gardening. They covered my plants like a canopy and protected them from drying out and actually kept my plants alive in the heat. I was amazed to find my plants still alive when the weather cooled down enough to tackle some weeding. Then I began to think more about the role that weeds play in the garden. The weeds didnt harm my plants, they protected them. And another time I got two very tall weeds growing and they had a lot of ladybirds on them so I decided to leave those weeds alone until the ladybirds had finished there. These days Im more tolerant with weeds and we pull some out, compost those, and leave some to grow through their season. I also leave the clover growing in the lawn for the few months the bees are using it and it comes back the next year. Ive noticed some weeds grow together and wonder if one of them support the other. Its interesting learning the cycles of the weeds that come and go in seasons. We also enjoy the dandelions that pop up and mostly leave them to grow as they look so rich and healthy. And we've found some milk thistle which also has some benefits too. Ive yet to learn the names of different weed plants and have always managed them by hand not by chemicals as it doesnt stop anything permanently afterall. Things grow back, regardless of the toxic solutions and the weeds have cycles in the year where they grow well and die back at other times naturally. Otherwise if I am to keep things from growing in the paver cracks I just use either vinegar or boiling water from the kettle and do that once each season for that area only. Thanks for showing the video, it was great to see such green growth when the background uniform planted crops had all died off. The vigour of the green from weeds was a good sight to see. đđ
This is so interesting! But how do you get the veggie seedlings to grow amongst the weeds? Don't they tend to get outcompeted by the weeds when they are just very small plants?
I am a new comer to this channel – WHERE ARE YOU ??? "Romania that in direct" and "Serbia in that direction" ? Would be informative to let us have some idea what eastern European Country your in ?
Wild pigs would eat most of that crop in S France – but I do like the weeds as ground cover!
I guess "weed" is just a label we give to plants anyway. We like English roses and pumpkin and hate dandelions and milk thistle but the plants just have survival of the fittest.
Trees and plants share water and nutrients through their root systems, trees can share water that has traveled hundreds of miles from coastal regions where it rains frequently inland. If you cut down and plow hundreds of acres of land thereby eliminating the ground cover….you destroy the surface water network of living vegetation.
If your experiencing pest insects eating your crops you should make a habitat that incourages predator insects like ladybug đand dragonflies, ducks will take care of snail and slug infestation on plants and they work for free.
Thank you. This is how my best produce grows as well. Working with nature not against it. The dandelions bring the bees, weeds help keep the moisture in just as you say.
The need to make everything look ordered, pretty and presentable is a mistake.
Peace to youâ€