In my opinion there are NO WEEDS.

Seed travels carried by the wind, or in birds' guano. If it germinates, it grows deep roots - at the very least - this plant will find minerals in the soil and bring them to the surface for other plants to enjoy.

So, every time that you pull a grass, or Dandelion, or the prickely Milk Thistle, please thank them for their "mineral mining" work.

Look at the unwanted vegetation as helpers in growing more nutritious food ... and take the "weed - stress" out of your life!

Those are the plants that either

• don't grow deep roots .. but perhaps still have a purpose in shading the soil
• or grow through rhyzoma - a dense network of roots - very difficult to eradicate
• or grow a long vine that climbs and shades other crops

Make sure you pull all the roots. I let the plant grow through August and dig deep to find all roots. Any little part left behind will regerminate next year. Rhyzoma-like root system will survive years under black plastic.

Very invasive. Very short rooted. No purpose, except for soil shading.

It may become a friend to grow under the canapy of fruit trees. Need to test further.

Needs to be controlled. Grows from perennial root that travels many feet apart.

Impossible to completely pull out. Best strategy is to keep pulling the leaves to weaken the root system and hopefully reduce the number of off-shoots next year.

I believe that the unwanted vegetation growth can be controlled and reduced to almost none with layers of mulch. The bottom layers are incorporated into the soil in time (some particles may take years) by the work of the soil life ... bacteria, insects.

In April 2008 I'm planning to grow onions, shallots and potatoes on this plot. There are grass seeds that germinate, which I control with a D-Ring blade (10 min. twice per month). In October I mulch with more leaves and the plot will be ready for transplaning in April.

This is an older web page ... which I'm not updating anymore. If you are interested in my current projects, please visit www.kenoshapotato.com or find the Kenosha Potato Project on facebook.