Re: Amer. Gardener article/Wild Greens

In a message dated 01/22/2004 12:57:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
mtalt@hort.net writes:

> there have
> been studies that indicate that white tail deer spread it and I sure
> would not be surprised about that.  They don't eat it, but the seed
> adheres to their fur when the brush past it.
> 

You know, Marge, that makes more sense than anything else.  I do pull them 
carefully each spring - a real crusade to get rid of them - but one place where 
they come back in real masses year after year is a bank behind my vegetable 
garden fence.  There is a fairly narrow passageway between the fence and the 
bank, and deer do go through there  regularly.  Why don't deer eat garlic mustard 
instead of my roses, daylilies, hostas and azaleas?  They willl probably be 
reduced to doing that before long since I have had to give up on all of those 
things because of them.

My other mistake could be putting bushels of the weeds in the compost heap.  
I try to get them before they bloom, but as you observed they can set blooms 
on very small plants, so I obviously can't catch them all.  That's probably the 
source of those that come up in my flower beds where I use compost for mulch 
and soil amendment.  I try to give the compost two good years before I use it, 
but since the piles are in a shaded place they may not heat up as much as 
they should.  We are on a pretty steep lot, and on one side there is a boulder 
with about a 15 foot drop.  I dump the stuff to be composted on alternate sides 
on alternate years - by the end of the season, the pile will almost reach the 
top of the boulder, but by spring it will have diminished a lot.  I try to let 
each pile sit for a full year before I use it, but that could be the source 
of the plagued weeds in beds.  Oh well.  Like the deer, I guess they will 
always be with us.  Can't fence this lot from either deer or garlic mustard.
Auralie

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Support hort.net -- join the hort.net fund drive!
http://www.hort.net/funds/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index