posted on Jun, 2 2020 @ 04:46 PM
Palmer Amaranth.
No, it's not an strain of marijuana, and it's not the preferred herb of the police, it's an invasive plant that is driving me nuts in my garden.
I've posted in a few other threads about this year's garden, which some of you may or may not know. Well, the garden is coming along pretty well,
although I have to replant the second planting of lima beans, and replant the first planting of collards and turnip greens.
I've noticed pig weed (I think) coming up, and it's driving me nuts. Here's why:
This area of yard has been fallow for a few years now, and is basically a "lawn." During those few years, zero pig weed came up, mostly just grass,
and it was cut every couple of weeks. Here's where it gets weird: I tilled up the entire garden, and the pig weed is only coming up—invasively
so—where I have formed mounds or hills and actually planted crop. The sections of garden that are tilled but not planted, zero pig weed, and I do
not understand why. I was thinking birds, but there's so much.
Where did it come from this year? I first noticed the pigweed about a decade ago when I brought home a load of stable manure/mulch, so I imagine the
seeds were in there. But it ONLY comes up when I plant a garden, and ONLY where I have actually planted seeds, which is equally interesting: if it's
an annual, how the hell is it suddenly so prolific and spreading so quickly even with just seedlings?
I even put Preen out after the crop sprouted, and it still came up, almost more prolifically than the actual crop.
Does anyone know why it only comes up in these particular places (areas planted and not in simply areas tilled) and how to control that # except
weeding by hand? I'm also reading it's resistant to quite a few herbicides ( which I wouldn't use in the garden anyway).
It's just really frustrating.