Complimentary Blueberry Juice

After admitting a little bit of defeat and looking at the positives of our system, we need to find a way to both be able to continue within the system while we work on a solution to the problem.

The most obvious solution is to start over.

If the weeds continue to return regardless of how much mulch or resources we throw at the issue, then we need to start over from zero. If the goal with no-till is to retain all the things you do not see above ground – microbial communities, root structures, and all the organic molecules that come with these things – there are many ways to achieve this. One is to have a continuously growing crop, so there are always living roots in the ground. Another is to deliberately plant a selection of species that is not intended for harvest, and this is known as a cover crop.

We have talked for a few years now about trying the idea of cover crops, but having not done it before, we punted it to future years. It seems that push has come to shove and we now see, and understand, how it can work in our system, the advantages it can potentially provide us, and how it works logistically – the order of operations – required to prepare an area of land such that weed pressure is drastically reduced.

So, our intention is to plant cover crops.

But to do so, it will initially require a light tilling.

If we can a) establish a cover crop (even with weeds present), we can then b) mow the cover crop, then c) place a tarp over the cover crop to block all light from reaching all remaining plants. The tarp will also heat extraordinarily during the day, applying additional heat energy to kill the remaining plant mass. At this point, we can d), remove the tarp, rebuild beds with a thick layer of compost directly on top of the previous cover crop.

This order of operations will hopefully give us a clean slate…there should be no remaining plants or weeds after this process. We do not intend to till the soil again, so no “seed bank” seeds will be brought near the surface to germinate. An additional thick layer of compost will act as a mulch layer to further bury anything that may be remaining.

Additionally this allows us to keep some percentage of the regenerative field continuously cover-cropped, and we can mow-tarp-mulch as we need new area to plant…as long as we can do this mow-tarp-mulch process at least two weeks prior to seeding or transplanting.

The remaining questions are a) what to plant as a cover crop, and b) the maximum amount of field we can reasonably cover crop without leading to a drop in production for our CSA or market programs. To put it differently, we will need to define what is the minimum amount of bed space required to start the season.

And that….is what we will figure out next.

Graham

thanks for reading