Category Archives: soil

Weeds Have Jobs – #6

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Purslane, an edible green

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a succulent that comes in many varieties, and the one usually found in the garden or driveway has small leaves, spreading close to the ground.  It has a cousin that has larger leaves, but still has a spreading aspect, and is found in the produce department of Latin markets under the name Verdolaga. Its used both raw in salads and cooked, as greens.

This “weed” can be found often growing in cracks in driveways, or along a hard-packed garden path.  It’ll also find its way into a garden bed with dense, clay soil.  It is drought tolerant and  grows in full sun as well as part shade.  Purslane is also attractive to bees. It grows where there is little humus and low moisture, as well as low calcium and phosphorous. As such, it is considered a “dynamic accumulator,” pulling in calcium and phosphorous from deeper in the soil via a long taproot, to make the minerals available to other plants. It can also indicate very high potassium and magnesium in the soil. 

Purslane growing amidst straw mulch in garden bed

Weeds Have Jobs – #5

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Our weed this time is a much maligned weed that is actually a good food that foragers look for!

Chenopodium albus (Lambs quarters)

The name, Chenopodium, refers to the shape of the leaves – “goose foot.”  Lambs quarters grows where there is very low calcium and phosphorus, very high potassium and magnesium, high sulfur and copper, low humus, good drainage of the soil.

Lambs quarters is another edible, and is in the amaranth family of plants; the seeds are gathered and used similar to quinoa (a relative).  It is wind-pollinated and so it does not have showy flowers to attract pollinators.  But it is a food source for various insects, caterpillars and wildlife. It can grow to be nearly 2 feet tall, and is often removed from vegetable beds because it is considered a “weed.”

Recognize it? Now you know it’s not a weed, but can be an indicator of soil needs and a source of food.

Weeds Have Jobs #3

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Continuing our conversation about weeds I’m finding in my garden beds in Tulsa, Oklahoma…..

Lamium amplexicaule (henbit) is common and easy to identify.

This plant tells us the soil is low in calcium, has low porosity, low humus, and low bacteria. It can also indicate poor drainage and sandy soil (the two go together because sand doesn’t hold water very well!). Its job is to provide erosion control by its roots. It likes moist soil and often is in shady places.
Henbit is edible and was brought to the Americas for chickens to eat. But wild food foragers say you can eat all of the plant. It’s a member of the mint family, and has lovely purple flowers that bees love.

If you want to read more about weeds and their jobs, I love two great references: John Beeby’s Test Your Soil with Plants (Willits, CA: Ecology Action, 2013); and Jay McCaman’s Weeds and Why They Grow (Sand Lake, MI: Jay McCaman, 1994.

Weeds Have Jobs #2

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This week we’ll talk about spurges, also called sandmats. There are two types that seem to be prevalent in the gardens I’m tending in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The first, Euphorbia maculata, with purple spots on the leaves.

Spurge – Euphorbia maculata

The second is Euphorbia prostrata, that tends to have a spreading, spiderlike, form.

Euphorbia prostrata

The third type is the Euphorbia serpens, or creeping spurge.

Euphorbia serpens

So what is this about spurges? What are they all about and why do they grow where they are? In other words, what is their job?

Euphorbias are prostrate and spread.  They can have a taproot up to 2 feet.  They are not edible (and are toxic – the milky latex sap contains diterpene estersin, which can be irritating to the skin). 

Spurges tell us that the soil is clay, loam, and sand. Which can be good. But …

Generally spurges indicate low calcium, very low phosphorus, very high potassium and magnesium, high sulfur, high copper, and a hard layer in the soil (thus the long taproot to break up the soil).  They also grow where there is poor drainage, which is a symptom of a hard soil layer.

So when you see a lot of spurges in your garden or in your lawn, think about having the soil tested for mineral content, and dig down a bit to see if there is a hard layer just under the top soil.

Want to read more? My favorite references are John Beeby’s Test Your Soil with Plants (Willits, CA: Ecology Action, 2013); and Jay McCaman’s Weeds and Why They Grow (Sand Lake, MI: Jay McCaman, 1994.

The Garden in Winter

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“So what should we do with the garden this winter?  It seems like it wasn’t growing things as well as it has in the past.”

That’s the question I was asked this last week. 

My first response was:  if they are not growing any winter vegetables, to bury the garden in leaves – several inches thick, watered down.  Even some cardboard, well moistened.  This will help put organic matter back into the soil.  Another way to help the soil is to grow a cover crop during the winter – maybe hairy vetch – which fixes more nitrogen in the soil. 

Leaves are so plentiful this time of year.  If they do not come from your own lot, you can easily find bags carefully left on the curb – ripe for the removal by scavenging composters and gardeners like me! The last place they should be going is the landfill.  Many community gardens are lacking the carbon/brown needed for a good compost pile – leaves on the curb are an excellent source.

Compost is another treatment you could use for wintering over, layered a few inches deep on top of the soil, and then maybe spreading some azomite to add trace minerals to the garden bed. 

Azomite is said to contain as many as 70 trace minerals that are needed to grow healthy plants.  We have systematically removed these trace minerals from our soils, by growing plants with simple, commercial fertilizers.  The plants take up the trace minerals and, when the plants are removed, so are the minerals.  However if we mineralize the soil, the plants take it up, we eat the plants and our health is improved. Then, when we compost the waste and then put it on the garden, those minerals are returned to the soil.

A good garden soil will be rich and soft. So soft, you can easily grab a handful from deep down.  If it’s dry and dusty, then it is lacking in organic material.

If you are growing winter vegetables, make sure they are mulched deeply. This will not only help the plants weather cold spells, but that mulch will work its way into the soil and help improve soil fertility as well as water-holding capacity.

The bed pictured on the left was well mulched with straw before the cold weather hit.  It is still growing mustard and chard, and the mulch protects the feet of the plants from freezes, as well as holding in moisture – and that protects the plants from cold, drying winter winds. By spring, the straw will have started decomposing and becomes compost to feed new plantings.

And the soil….this is where it all starts!  If the soil is not healthy (read:  full of micro-organisms) then it will not produce healthy plants.  I’ll talk more about soil in another post – as well as give you a way to inexpensively do a soil census of your soil’s living organisms.