Yarrow may have potential. I think I have some yarrow sprouting in a couple of spots in my garden, so I will monitor it to make sure it is not a nuisance before I actively propagate it.
But my philosophy about bare spots is currently:
Let’s see what mother nature is growing, why spend time buying seeds/inside propagating/monitoring, aka work, when mother nature provide me a suitable weed that may fill in the same layer of the garden. I am given pigweed which quickly grows in bare spots but doesn’t spread outside the bares spots so this is perfect, it is also toxic to humans which may be useful if my MIL spends too much time at my house (I joke, I joke). Bonus, thanks to “When weeds talk”, I can easily see what the weed is telling me the nutrients missing in the garden, so a free soil test.
If I am going to bring in new plants, potentially invasive, I am going to need it to be taking a layer that doesn’t compete with my annuals (squash/tomatoes/beans/melons/…), so mint size plants would be perfect, all my annuals would easily outcompete it, just have to do some experiments about mint’s allelopathic properties and would also have to create borders so it doesn’t take over the whole garden. Yarrow may grow too tall for that purpose.
So, my current concept of a ‘min-garden’ would be: 2x4 bare spot in the garden (created by weed barrier placed in the fall) for my annual plant, surrounded by some ground cover (mint, strawberries) which can quickly take over the bare spot while giving the annual seedling the time to grow tall enough to shade out the ground cover. Perhaps some comfrey to the North of the spot, which gives it some cooling effect in the summer, a thornless honey locust to the South, its foliage providing shade from the mid-day summer sun, its roots nitrogen and permanent roots/soil life under the bare spot, a grape under the honey locust, perhaps a fruit bush or dwarf fruit tree to east. That guild repeated at nauseam throughout my garden would some low-maintenance combo of annuals and perennials that would work.
Yes, and no need to buy seeds unless you cant find them by foraging. Native plants will help tell you about your soil, why not be the synergistic element to propogate the collection to benifit your vegetable selection. The more variety, the healthier your growing spaces. Ive had great growing seasons by adding herbs, and plants I forage for seed. Im in upstate NY at my Moms farm gathering early season seeds. She has meadow and forests with all types of early native plants. Plantain, wild chamomile, mullian, buttercup, and a bunch I still have to find the name, are all going into my garden space in Arizona.. Ive also foraged forest floor leaf and pine needles compost to innoculate my soil. Here is a sample of what is flowering…
Exactly right, Kim, thanks for the reminder to keep an eye out for interesting things that grow around my property which I can uproot and bring into my garden,
Its all good, I’ll have wild seeds to share with the group, either thru seed packets or thru the serendipity box that is going around. Have you had a chance to recieve the box of seeds? My preference is to share thru the GTS seed packets and continue to help seed up this project. I dont mind sharing from my library.
Zone 7b, Knoxville, TN, unusually wet spring. I direct sowed late this year and birds or bunnies or squirrels are eating the seeds before they germinate, scattering seed hulls all over. And then some creature is snipping off the tops of the few that actually germinated. I only have two watermelon seedlings out of 40 or so seeds that I planted. So I am going to re sow another round of seeds and cover with netting. I planted GTS watermelon, black tail mountain seed saved from my garden last year, charleston gray, texas golden, buffalo seed company watermelon mix, tendersweet orange, clay county watermelon, sunrise, crimson sweet, and cekirdegi oyali orange flesh.
About four seedlings made it in one mound, I reseeded both mounds and covered them against the birds and squirrels and bunnies. They are in and among my young pawpaws and citrus and comfrey in my bermuda overgrown food forest system.
Poor performance by this F3 watermelon generation. This is the first year we have had this much rain in May/June during their landrace life, when they are used to drought, but this is ridiculous. I will be adding some more watermelon genetics from the GTS mix next year, starting them inside, use insect/bird netting sooner,… to have a much stronger landrace going forward…
I felt like everything took longer to sprout and grow this year. We had some really hot weather in Feb, then it cooled off and started raining in April. And we got nearly 5 inches last week! Its not that its a very wet spring, this is a normal spring, its just that the rain came later than normal. But now the watermelon is starting to take over! I’ve redirected the watermelon vines in 2 different beds, in one moving it off the grass and back into the bed. We moved into this house in Feb 2023 and it was a struggle to grow stuff last year. And so much bare dirt. but I’m seeing things really take off this year, and I know I and my chickens will enjoy watermelon!
The direct sowed watermelons are finally properly coming in and surviving after I covered them against whatever was munching the tiny sprouts and munching the seeds. Once I have ten or so on each mound that have second leaves, I’ll uncover them. We are so late here for direct sowing but whatever, it’s all a grand experiment.
I am in zone 7. I only just direct sowed water melon last week. They are sprouting now and coming up nicely. I have sowed them in 30 m2 about 5-10 cm spacing apart and germination is pretty good. I will thin when they start competing for space.
I am satisfied if I get just one fruit with viable seed this year. Next year I will direct seed a month earlier or so.
South-west France, zone 8b. Seeds were sown around mid-may this year. Will precocify my watermelon sowings up to mid-april in next years, and select on that relatively cold temp early growth. I am willing to get robust plants, well established before Solstice so when the sun starts hitting hard like with the recent 38°C/100°F, and so with fruit earliness as substantial co-benefit.
Growing watermelon is very uncommon in that part of France, but still I’m seeing great potentials after 4 years of relative successes, with harvest starting from 5th of August to 20th of September depending on yearly weather and temperatures.
