3000 Weed Seeds:

**WardinWake** 5/29/2010, 6:11 am

Howdy:

The following is from an article from Johnny's Selected Seeds.

Here are some sobering statistics as you begin the weeding season on
your farm or market garden: A Minnesota study found that a square foot
of soil, 6" deep, contained from 98 to 3,068 viable weed seeds. Many
seeds remain viable for decades; Jimsonweed has a 90% germination rate
after 40 years in the soil and field bindweed seeds are viable for more
than 50 years. All those seeds are just sitting there, in what is known
as the "weed seed bank," waiting for favorable conditions that will
allow them to germinate.

So if I were to cheat on Mel's Mix and only put in one shovelful of my own soil I would be putting in...Yikes! 3000 weed seeds!!! And if I were to mix my soil into my now not so pure Mel's Mix I could have weeds popping up for 50 years! Oh Wow. The moral of this story is .... DON'T CHEAT.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

Retired Member 1 5/29/2010, 6:34 am

I had to chuckle at this article. Right now I am growing a pecan forest in one of my lasagna beds since I used leaves that were full of pecans. I've tried many times to plant pecans with absolutely no success, so I figured I didn't have anything to worry about. NOT! I've been clipping off dozens of little baby trees. And don't even get me started on bindweed (called strangleweed around here). This is my first year at this property, and it's popping up all over the place. None in the raised beds yet, but everywhere else.

The trick as this article hints at is not to let any unwanted plants go to seed.

LaFee 5/29/2010, 6:54 am

Um... Thanks, Boffer...I think! 3000 Weed Seeds: Icon_eek

We have tons of big trees in our neighborhood, so just keeping ahead of the tree seedlings in my SFG is work enough!

My flower beds have convinced me to just accept a "lived-in" look...they're never going to be weed-free.

Kabaju42 5/29/2010, 11:19 am

Wow that's amazing stats, but at the same time not very surprising for me. As I mentioned before the house I bought has a yard that hasn't been taken care of for at least two decades, probably longer. As I've started getting the ground ready I've had all sorts of plants come up. There's the tulips that sprouted up in a few places. There's all the little heaven trees that are still coming up even after I killed and took down the main tree last year. And there's even a bush that decided to come up now, but hasn't been around since the neighborhood was developed in the 40s.

I am so glad I'm doing SFG to keep out all those weeds.

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