Re: no-till gardening

   Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 16:09 -0800
   From: "Deborah Lindsay" <Deborah.Lindsay@kaiseral.com>

   A question for those of you with experience in no-till
   gardening: Would this work for a hillside completely covered
   with Oxalis pes-caprae where I wish to re-establish a 
   Quercus agrifolia/native grasses and forbs ecotone?

I don't have extensive experience with unwanted oxalis in a garden (just
2.5 years worth and I basically ignore it as mostly harmless) and I have no
experience with the plants you want.  But here are some thoughts.

Oxalis, as you know, is a bulb.  It's small and hard and very little
affects it.  Mulching doesn't seem to help much and tilling certainly
doesn't.  So I think you'll have oxalis regardless of if you till or use
no-till.  No-till is much healthier for a hillside though because it
doesn't encourage erosion.

Oxalis pes-caprae just loves empty space.  I've noticed that other plants
can push it out pretty easily but it will take over bare dirt (including
under larger plants like bushes).  It adores dirt that's been stirred up.

One example: my neighbor is one of those who believes anything she didn't
plant is a weed.  So she hired someone a 2 years ago to pull up as many
wild onions on the strip next to our driveway as possible (at least she's a
low chemical user and has agreed not to use *any* near our property).  It
was winter so they just came out of the ground very easily, along with some
soil.  I had to run out and stop her from removing the ones on my property
line.  I eat them! and they're pretty.

That strip of hers has been dug up several times and is mostly bare.
Except when weeds of all sorts take it over.  She hasn't gotton around to
putting in a path so she hasn't planted either.  In the dry season it's
bare or covered in tall grass weeds.  In the winter it's wild onions and
oxalis. 

It used to be mostly wild onions but now it's mostly oxalis.  Sigh...
Actually, I think they're both pretty but I prefer the wild onions.  At
least they're (I believe) native and they aren't invasive at all (they'll
only come up where there's nothing else).

I have found that oxalis lessens when the ground has other plantings.  You
may not be able to avoid it completely but just planting your grasses will
help a lot.  The oxalis is dormant in the dry season so the other plants
will have plenty of oppurtunity to take over.

Anyway, my suggestion is that you do use no-till and if the hillside is
totally covered with oxalis you might want to wait until it's going dormant
to plant, though that means missing the rains.  Mowing the oxalis will
help.  You can pull it but that disturbs the soil some (and the bulbs will
break off and stay in the soil).  It's a trade off.

Cyndi

_______________________________________________________________________________
Oakland, California            Zone 9 USDA; Zone 16 Sunset Western Garden Guide
Chemically sensitive/disabled - Organic Gardening only by choice and neccessity
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There's nothing wrong with me.  Maybe there's                     Cyndi Norman
something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG)           cyndi@consultclarity.com
                                                 http://www.consultclarity.com/
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