We had herb Robert growing over our 2 year old fruit bushes this year. Not sure on the long term and the bushes will get taller but this year it protected the minimal fruit from being seen by birds
I wonder if some of this mindset comes from our tiny modern growing spaces. If you observe a bigger chunk of land you see different species naturally dominate different spaces, and that there is very little humans can do to change that in the long run. If weedy species were going to take over the world they would have done it millions of years ago. Maybe they already did and we haven't noticed yet.
Would be nice to write an in-depth entry on invasiveness with an executive summary at the top so we can link to than whenever we get the flag raised in the discord ;)
Also, a curious angle is the fact you're not intensively planting/growing/managing your space - which, considering the total size of 300 sqm (?) kinda leads the thought in that direction, if growing food is the aim. Might be interesting to explore more in that direction. In effect you're trying to replace one weed with another, or worse - get them both growing. Do they have higher value to you than more usable food plants? IE, with very limited space, why grow mock strawberry instead of regular one?
The regular strawberry gets swamped by the "invasive" stuff. Having said that, I do have wild strawberry and yes, mock strawberry. Mock Strawberry I grow for fun, because as you know, I am a potentilla obsessive. I don't see it as worse to get two or more weeds growing together, because the higher the species count the higher the biodiversity of insects and health of the soil. I am trying to grow more medicinal or edible weeds though, that is true. One problem is that I can't easily direct sow stuff (it can work, but is tricky).
We had herb Robert growing over our 2 year old fruit bushes this year. Not sure on the long term and the bushes will get taller but this year it protected the minimal fruit from being seen by birds
I wonder if some of this mindset comes from our tiny modern growing spaces. If you observe a bigger chunk of land you see different species naturally dominate different spaces, and that there is very little humans can do to change that in the long run. If weedy species were going to take over the world they would have done it millions of years ago. Maybe they already did and we haven't noticed yet.
Weedy species have definitely taken over the world, if you define the word as being the most vigorous and adaptable.
Would be nice to write an in-depth entry on invasiveness with an executive summary at the top so we can link to than whenever we get the flag raised in the discord ;)
Also, a curious angle is the fact you're not intensively planting/growing/managing your space - which, considering the total size of 300 sqm (?) kinda leads the thought in that direction, if growing food is the aim. Might be interesting to explore more in that direction. In effect you're trying to replace one weed with another, or worse - get them both growing. Do they have higher value to you than more usable food plants? IE, with very limited space, why grow mock strawberry instead of regular one?
The regular strawberry gets swamped by the "invasive" stuff. Having said that, I do have wild strawberry and yes, mock strawberry. Mock Strawberry I grow for fun, because as you know, I am a potentilla obsessive. I don't see it as worse to get two or more weeds growing together, because the higher the species count the higher the biodiversity of insects and health of the soil. I am trying to grow more medicinal or edible weeds though, that is true. One problem is that I can't easily direct sow stuff (it can work, but is tricky).