tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post3416824238471649487..comments2024-03-27T20:32:42.461-05:00Comments on Lillie House Permaculture: This Hack Get's Mother Nature to Fight Weeds for You: Fortress PlantsMichael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-13867764049543391042017-07-06T07:10:50.681-05:002017-07-06T07:10:50.681-05:00Great question! We have to observe, work with the ...Great question! We have to observe, work with the plants to figure out which to use in which spot. For example, check out this Permaculture garden bed make-over, as described by Mollison and Lawton, and (poorly) illustrated by myself. http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-beginner-permaculture-garden-make-over.html<br /><br />We choose shorter, non-spreading herbaceous plants for the job of surrounding vegetable gardens, such as sorrel, blood-veined sorrel, and comfrey, intermixed with alliums and daffodils. Combined with good timing on the mowing and efficient watering (we don't water our lawn in the summer, trying our best to effciently water only our target veggies with drip, soaker hoses and can-watering from our water barrels) this does a pretty good job of keeping our beds from being over-run. Larger "mulch-maker" plants are also welcome on the north side of keyholes, such as cardoon, poke, and even sunchoke, which can be kept from spreading if cut for mulch. <br /><br />You may also choose to keep the bed in a continuous living ground cover of perennial vegetables, along with clover or yarrow, which can be "chopped and dropped." You harvest a few vegetables or herbs (like valerian) plant in your start, chop and drop the plants nearby, grab some extra from a nearby mulch-maker plant, mulch your start well, and you should be good to go for the season. <br /><br />Elsewhere, a line of taller pioneers like black raspberry can keep grasses from encroaching on a broader garden area or forest garden. In my observation, this works best if interplanted with other herbaceous fortress plants. This can be especially useful at the edge of a forest garden area or guild. Black raspberry spreads by tip-rooting, so if we keep them correctly pruned, we shouldn't have too much of a problem with the encroaching on the area they are supposed to protect. If they do, the woody perennials of a forest garden guild should be able to outcompete them, keeping the fortress plants at the edge. <br /><br />But all of this becomes very site-specific. <br /><br />Sites where succession has been held still a long time, with good fertility, rich, well-draining soil are going to have more vigorous grasses and early pioneer weeds. <br /><br />We have to move such soils to a "later stage of succession" where herbaceous plants and woody perennials can begin to dominate, which means more woody mulches that imitate the forest floor. After a few years of no-till and woody mulches, grasses should begin to thin and receed, or may start pulling out very easily. Early pioneer "weeds" actually stop germinating. (On the down side, this sometimes includes a few of our favorite annual veggies, which must then be planted as starts.) Michael Hoaghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-86915870891544054692017-07-06T01:14:25.510-05:002017-07-06T01:14:25.510-05:00Wonderful, thank you so much for this information!...Wonderful, thank you so much for this information! Your posts are always so inspiring. :)<br /><br />I've got a question - it makes sense how fortress plants can make a wall to keep out grasses and weeds. But what keeps them from pushing inwards as well? I'm trying to understand how they provide ideal habitat to our favorite fruits and veggies, instead of crowding out our favorite fruits and veggies.<br /><br />Jason Padvorachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15449832834181890388noreply@blogger.com