How to Make The Most of Your Yard (Including Weeds!), Permaculture Style

Not all the world hates weeds. Sure, there are many gardeners scuffling around in the clogs, cursing those pesky dandelions (actually a highly medicinal plant) and that crabgrass blemishing their flower beds. They offer theories as to how to prevent them, when to get rid of them and, at the weakest and worst moments, may even spray a little agent orange, aka Roundup, to kill them dead, dead, dead.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, with a little effort and a good plan, weeds and gardeners can live in harmony. In fact, it’s not just weeds. It’s all those twigs and sticks that loiter round beneath trees. The mountains of leaves that spiral down in the autumn can join in as well. With the right mindset, that is a mindset of feeding your garden some premium organic fodder, all the yard work many have come to despise can actually be … exciting.

That’s right. I said it. I love weeding and raking. I get warm and fuzzy over fallen debris from my trees. I know that all of this stuff will make my garden a richer, more fertile space, and it is completely free. Instead of agonizing over the work I’m doing to keep the grass trimmed, through permaculture techniques, I’ve learned how to make my yard work for me.

Step 1: More Garden, Less Grass

The first and most exciting step of making your yard work for you is getting rid of the grass and making a garden (Here are ten reasons to do it!). This, however, doesn’t have to be the typical tilled-up rows we’ve come to associate with growing vegetables. Garden beds can be arranged like flowerbeds, or they can be beautiful herb spirals or funky designs. The idea is to use the space to grow food, which can be an alluring mix of colors and aromas as well. Then, rather than mowing the lawn so much, you get to harvest some food.

Read more here.

Grandma called it Medicine Leaf

When I was a little girl, my father’s mother, Catherine, and I were very close. Mom was awfully busy trying to raise six kids and run a farm by herself, so I spent a lot of time with grandma (I’m the baby of the family). She had ever-bearing strawberries that she would pick as soon as they showed a blush of red so the birds didn’t get them. There were always hollyhocks and poppies, the yellow transparent apple tree, lilacs, roses and a small vegetable garden. Grandma and I would dance and sing on the front lawn, and every Saturday night we had a “date” watching HeeHaw.

I remember grandma pointing to a broad leaf plant in the yard and calling it “medicine leaf”. She told me the Indians use to use it for medicine, but we never used it ourselves.
Fast forward about 30 years.  I’ve rediscovered “medicine leaf”, and it’s become a staple of my first aid kit.  It turns out grandma’s “weed” was actually common plantain (Plantago major).

From Alternative Nature Online Healer:

Read more here.

The Benefits of Stinging Nettles

Stinging nettles are often thought of as a weed, but they have many health and nutritious benefits as well as being easy to grow or forage.

The basics

• They lose their sting in the first 30 seconds of cooking.
• They have more protein than any other edible plant I know of.
• They will satisfy my hamburger cravings.
• Harvest for eating before they are knee high.
• The seeds and roots have medicinal value.
• In the fall they can be used to make cordage - especially good for water cordage, like nets (hence the name).
• Possibly the easiest plant food to dry and save for later

Jumping on the stinging nettle train

In 2001 I learned that lots of my animals liked to eat stinging nettles. In looking it up, I found that it was one of the best things they could eat. So good, that I should try to encourage growing it rather than discourage it.

Read more here.

Scientists Prove Goats Are Better Than Chemical Weedkillers

Science proves what farmers already know: Goats make excellent weedkillers.

Herbivores—not herbicides—is the way to go, according to research published in the journal PeerJ.

The researchers compared the effectiveness of goats versus chemical herbicides against the common reed—a grass that is overrunning coastal wetlands from New England to the Southeast. "For more than two decades, we've declared major chemical and physical warfare on this grass, using all the latest man-made weapons," says Brian R. Silliman, PhD, associate professor of marine conservation biology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "We've used helicopters to spray it with herbicides and bulldozers to remove its roots. More often than not, however, it returns."

Read more here.

Fiskars Weed Pullers - weapons of weed destruction

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

It doesn't take long for weeds to take over a garden and removing them can be an arduous task. Until of course you are fully prepared to wage war on weeds with the Fiskars Weed Puller. It's a smart solution because it removes weeds with a quick pull and release action without the use of harmful pesticides. The tool works with four deep-reaching stainless steel claws, which grab the tap root efficiently.

Once the weed has been pulled, a quick fire ejection releases it straight into a waiting wheelbarrow or trug and off the lawn or bed you are working in. Designed to make removing weeds effortless, this eco-friendly weeding system allows the gardener to work without bending down, prevent muscle strain and backache.

As James Wong says, the steel claws of Fiskars weed puller reach down deep so you don't have to.

Tips & Tricks from James Wong

"A close relative of trendy radicchio, dandelion leaves are a spring time delicacy across the Mediterranean, from France to Italy. Containing 7x the antioxidants of lettuce, this gourmet green is so easy to grow it literally plants itself. A free farmers market on your doorstep? Boom!"

Product details

• Deep reaching stainless steel claw grab roots in multiple direction

• No digging or bending required

• FibreComp™ shaft for lightness, strength and durability

• Softgrip™ comfortable handle which enhances its ergonomic design

• Length 988mm. Weight 917g

• Length of blade: 90cm

• Available as a telescopic model with a large D-shaped handle. Length 1000mm extending to 1200mm. Weight 1700g

• James Wong fronts the Fiskars garden hand tools campaign to revolutionize gardening and inspire a new generation to get outdoors.

Fiskars garden tools are available nationwide in DIY stores, hardware stores, garden centres and online.

James Wong and Fiskars

In his new role as brand ambassador for Fiskars, horticultural celebrity and ethnobotanist James Wong injects the va va voom into gardening. With tools designed to minimise effort and James set to maximise enjoyment, it's a union that will invigorate today's gardeners and inspire tomorrow's.

Reinventing Gardening

Fiskars tools are examples of the company's aspiration to reinvent the gardening experience through the use of advanced engineering and materials. We believe that all things, even the simplest, can be made better and smarter so that work in the garden becomes easier, lighter, more efficient and simply more pleasurable - which is ultimately what gardening should be all about.

Edible weeds

Dandelion are not the only edible weeds in your garden, however. There is also Chickweed, Fat Hen, aka Lambs Quarter or Goosefoot, and quite a fair number of others. So, therefore, don't necessarily weed them but eat them; at least those that are edible, and as James Wong mentioned as regards to the nutrient content of Dandelion in comparison to lettuce many other weeds too have great nutrient values. Therefore, before you weed the weeds check which ones may be edible and use them rather than waste them.

© 2015

Don't waste your dandelions

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Many gardeners are horrified when dandelions pop up in their flower beds or vegetable plots and immediately set about eradicating them. Not an easy task to begin with as just a bit of root left behind, and there will more often then not be a bit left behind, guarantees a new dandelion plant. But why would anyone want to do that.

The Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) makes extremely good eating in itself and the entire plant can, in fact, be put to good use.

Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are native to Eurasia and North and South America, and two species, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum, are found as weeds worldwide. Both species are edible in their entirety. The common name dandelion, from French dent-de-lion, meaning "lion's tooth") is given to members of the genus, The name is derived from the serration of the leaves of the plant which resemble teeth of a big cat. Like other members of the Asteraceae family, they have very small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower in a head is called a floret. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.

All parts can be used. The leaves, when young, are a great salad vegetable and can replace rocket, aka rucola or, in America, arugula. When the leaves get older they get somewhat more bitter and then can be used in the same way as spring greens, best, however, sauteed with garlic.

The flowers can also be eaten, added to salads, and they can be made into wine, which is the better way to use them, probably. In addition to that they can make a dandelion flower marmalade and the roots can be roasted and made into coffee or steeped as an infusion, aka tea.

So, why would anyone want to remove and eradicate this plant, which is very difficult to do in the first place.

Aside from all the benefits that this plant has and uses it also makes for a great show of butter-yellow flowers in Spring (and often several times over during the year). So you get two things, color and food, from the same plant.

© 2014

Weeding can be very therapeutic

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Weeding can be a very therapeutic way to spend an hour or so, but to appreciate how good it can be you need to motivate yourself to start.

For a lot of people coming in from work and sitting in front of the TV is a great way to clear your mind, but rather than sit down and do nothing get up and get out weeding your plot. It is not stressful. In fact it relaxes you better than the TV, and you have a sense of achievement when you have finished. And the next day when traveling to work you can look back on what you did and be much happier and you can exude a level of smugness that will have people wondering what medication you are on.

To me weeding is such an exercise in mind clearing and relaxation but it is also that time when the ideas come in, often, for new articles and essays. Another reason why I like it, in the same way as path edging.

Many in professional gardening and grounds-maintenance give me a strange look when I say that I enjoy weeding the beds and edging the paths. They would rather not do it and that is the difference between someone who does it for the money alone and someone who cares about the job.

Aside from destressing weeding and edging gives a great sense of achievement for it gives instant results and you can look back at the work at the end of the day and be pleased with yourself. How many people have such a satisfaction in their jobs working in an office. The only other person that does is the craftsman or -woman who works with his or her hands and holds a finished object in those after a day's work.

This is also why, outside of work, I garden and like to make things with my hands. Relaxation and instant gratification, as far as weeding the garden beds and the finished objects made are concerned. What can be better?

Gardening is therapeutic anyway but makes it even better.

© 2013

Please pass the weeds

Get even with weeds by eating them!

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Dandelion, chickweed, purslane and lamb's quarters are common greens that are used, and enjoyed in some regions of the USA, as well as in other countries. In fact, in some countries Sorrel and Lamb's Quarter, a cousin to the Quinoa, are purposely grown, such as on the Indian Sub-Continent.

When you use weeds, and I very much encourage you to do so, just make sure that, if you forage for them in the wild, they have not been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides.

Toss dandelion flowers into a green salad for a touch of color and flavor! Use the young leaves as you would rocket (arugula) or cook alder leaves into a spinach dish. And that is not even all that you can do with the humble dandelion.

The Greek have a dish called “horta” which often contains edible weeds rather than garden greens, mainly dandelion leaves and those of the stinging nettle, boiled like spinach. In fact, more or less, any edible weed can go into this dish.

The Asian community from the Indian Sub-Continent grow some plants that we would regard as (edible) weeds on purpose, including on their allotments in Britain such as goosefoot, aka lamb's quarter, and also sorrel.

Last year I saw many people taking the seed heads from the sorrel (Rumex acetosa) home from the park. So much so that there were no seed heads left on any of the plants that are growing in the pinetum of the park to be found afterward.

The majority of those that took those seed heads were from the Asian community and I am certain that they took them in order to sow sorrel in their gardens to grow for food. And I know that this is not the only wild plant that those folks will “cultivate” in their gardens for use in their diet. Should this not give us some food for thought?

Sorrel can be and is being used as spinach of the cut-and-come-again type; chickweed as a pot herb and also goes well with chopped egg as a substitute for salad cress in sandwich filling, when combined with a good mayonnaise.

Goosefoot (Lamb's Quarter or Fat Hen) can be used in a number of different ways: The leaves as a spinach substitute, the stems, especially when the plant, which can reach up to three feet in height, has grown well, steamed like asparagus, the flower head, before it goes to seed, as broccoli and the seeds themselves as quinoa.

And this is but a small list of edible weeds that can be used for and are good as food. Why waste a good resource and better still why throw them out of your garden when they are that good.

So, pass the weeds and don't pass up on the weeds.

© 2013