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>That said, I would be throwing money at the monitor right now if this thing was smart enough to identify weeds and remove them. Weeding is entirely unnecessar

>That said, I would be throwing money at the monitor right now if this thing was smart enough to identify weeds and remove them. Weeding is entirely unnecessary and often does more harm than good. Plant a cover crop and leave it be. Gardening can already be as simple as 3 tasks: plant, harvest, spread compost. It is just that people are very set in their ways and don't ever think to explore better ways of doing things.

hutzlibu 10y ago
Have you done that, or just read about it? Because I read about it (I asume you mean permaculture), tried it out - and dismissed most of it. Permaculture is indeed great as a concept, but is in no way as easy as people tell you it is. Most of what people tell you about is close to scam (even if it is wishfull thinking)
- gtvwill 10y ago
  Mate permacultures easy, like....incredibly easy, if you read into old billy mollisons book and couldn't manage to make it work you probably just over thought the process, and it does make for land that has GREAT production per acre rates.
  - hutzlibu 10y ago
    Well, I've seen quite some places doing permaculture in australia and europe - and they all had to do LOTS of work - and a not so great production per acre rate (but it all looked great on the other hand) And I do use permaculture principles in my garden, but if someone tells me, no weeding is ever needed - then they either do gardening on a different planet, or are just lying.
- stellar678 10y ago
  Sheet mulching is easy and incredibly effective in my experience. Cardboard topped with a mulch layer like straw. (Optional soil amendments below the cardboard.) In a small backyard garden you might need to pull out a couple dozen weeds over the entire growing season. You'll also be able to reduce your water use significantly because you've eliminated most of the open/broken soil that loses water to evaporation.
  - prawn 10y ago
    I mulch. I still get insane amounts of weeds and they are usually far more aggressive and larger than the crop I'm trying to grow. I think it depends on the quality of your soil and weeds in the area (existing, from neighbours, etc).
    - stellar678 10y ago
      Interesting. Are the weeds penetrating through a barrier like cardboard - or just through a mulch layer? I've worked on some larger-scale permaculture projects where a cardboard/mulch combo managed to kill off a thick blanket of ivy, and that stuff is tenacious.
      - prawn 10y ago
        Through a layer of lucerne. Mixture of inheriting poor soil quality, seeds drifting in and passages where it's been let go (while overseas, etc) and weeds have developed seed heads. Thistles are a real pain here (South Australia), as are soursobs (oxalis). I have an entire catalogue of weeds. I might try some black plastic on one bed.
        HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
        I agree. As soon as I read the first comment about weeding being unnecessary, I realized that person wasn't dealing with thistles. I am in an ongoing war with those things. Even after covering up a section of garden for two years with opaque plastic sheet and heavy junk, a week after removing it, up they come. My soil is very good quality, having been improved with chicken & horse manure and composted chicken litter. The problem is I live on a windy hilltop and seeds from all over land where I'm planting. I've even had a wheat stalk show up.
        prawn 10y ago
        One key to solarisation is to not turn over the soil after cooking the top layer. If you turn the soil, you bring dormant seeds to the surface where they can once again ruin your life. If you did that properly and still got thistles, then we're doomed! One thing to try might be two layers of clear plastic with air trapped between - maybe 15-20cm gap. That further raises the temperature of the soil underneath. It's a method used in greenhouses too.
- MustardTiger 10y ago
  Yes, I do it every year to grow thousands of dollars of food for the small CSA I operate. I spend more time taking money and handing people baskets than I do working in the gardens and greenhouse. What did you have trouble with exactly?
  - spoon16 10y ago
    Any good books that describe the process you use?
    - MustardTiger 10y ago
      I honestly don't know, all my info has come from the internet. I use a pond, hugels and cover crop to skip watering. I don't till because tilling is simply harmful, you don't need to do anything to skip that. I use a cover crop of white clover and bugleweed to keep the soil from eroding away, keep the soil full of roots and thus bacteria, and to keep the moisture in the soil instead of having it evaporate off. Bare earth is really terrible, but everyone has learned through osmosis that gardens are supposed to look bare. In the fall after harvesting I spread the composted manure from the goats, rabbits and chickens on the garden beds. That's pretty much it. The biggest difficulty in gardening is planning (how much to plant of which things at what times), not actual work.
  - hutzlibu 10y ago
    Well, with Weeds? (and snails) Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all? So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
    - green7ea 10y ago
      If it's a possibility, you may want to look into ducks for your snail problem. The ducks will keep the snail population low enough that it won't be a problem.
      - 10y ago

hutzlibu 10y ago

Have you done that, or just read about it? Because I read about it (I asume you mean permaculture), tried it out - and dismissed most of it. Permaculture is indeed great as a concept, but is in no way as easy as people tell you it is. Most of what people tell you about is close to scam (even if it is wishfull thinking)

gtvwill 10y ago
Mate permacultures easy, like....incredibly easy, if you read into old billy mollisons book and couldn't manage to make it work you probably just over thought the process, and it does make for land that has GREAT production per acre rates.
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  Well, I've seen quite some places doing permaculture in australia and europe - and they all had to do LOTS of work - and a not so great production per acre rate (but it all looked great on the other hand) And I do use permaculture principles in my garden, but if someone tells me, no weeding is ever needed - then they either do gardening on a different planet, or are just lying.
stellar678 10y ago
Sheet mulching is easy and incredibly effective in my experience. Cardboard topped with a mulch layer like straw. (Optional soil amendments below the cardboard.) In a small backyard garden you might need to pull out a couple dozen weeds over the entire growing season. You'll also be able to reduce your water use significantly because you've eliminated most of the open/broken soil that loses water to evaporation.
- prawn 10y ago
  I mulch. I still get insane amounts of weeds and they are usually far more aggressive and larger than the crop I'm trying to grow. I think it depends on the quality of your soil and weeds in the area (existing, from neighbours, etc).
  - stellar678 10y ago
    Interesting. Are the weeds penetrating through a barrier like cardboard - or just through a mulch layer? I've worked on some larger-scale permaculture projects where a cardboard/mulch combo managed to kill off a thick blanket of ivy, and that stuff is tenacious.
    - prawn 10y ago
      Through a layer of lucerne. Mixture of inheriting poor soil quality, seeds drifting in and passages where it's been let go (while overseas, etc) and weeds have developed seed heads. Thistles are a real pain here (South Australia), as are soursobs (oxalis). I have an entire catalogue of weeds. I might try some black plastic on one bed.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
        I agree. As soon as I read the first comment about weeding being unnecessary, I realized that person wasn't dealing with thistles. I am in an ongoing war with those things. Even after covering up a section of garden for two years with opaque plastic sheet and heavy junk, a week after removing it, up they come. My soil is very good quality, having been improved with chicken & horse manure and composted chicken litter. The problem is I live on a windy hilltop and seeds from all over land where I'm planting. I've even had a wheat stalk show up.
        prawn 10y ago
        One key to solarisation is to not turn over the soil after cooking the top layer. If you turn the soil, you bring dormant seeds to the surface where they can once again ruin your life. If you did that properly and still got thistles, then we're doomed! One thing to try might be two layers of clear plastic with air trapped between - maybe 15-20cm gap. That further raises the temperature of the soil underneath. It's a method used in greenhouses too.
MustardTiger 10y ago
Yes, I do it every year to grow thousands of dollars of food for the small CSA I operate. I spend more time taking money and handing people baskets than I do working in the gardens and greenhouse. What did you have trouble with exactly?
- spoon16 10y ago
  Any good books that describe the process you use?
  - MustardTiger 10y ago
    I honestly don't know, all my info has come from the internet. I use a pond, hugels and cover crop to skip watering. I don't till because tilling is simply harmful, you don't need to do anything to skip that. I use a cover crop of white clover and bugleweed to keep the soil from eroding away, keep the soil full of roots and thus bacteria, and to keep the moisture in the soil instead of having it evaporate off. Bare earth is really terrible, but everyone has learned through osmosis that gardens are supposed to look bare. In the fall after harvesting I spread the composted manure from the goats, rabbits and chickens on the garden beds. That's pretty much it. The biggest difficulty in gardening is planning (how much to plant of which things at what times), not actual work.
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  Well, with Weeds? (and snails) Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all? So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
  - green7ea 10y ago
    If it's a possibility, you may want to look into ducks for your snail problem. The ducks will keep the snail population low enough that it won't be a problem.
    - 10y ago