June 24, 2025 • 36 mins
This week we dive deep into the world of garden weeds and how some seemingly harmless plants can actually be Trojan horses harboring pests and diseases. Learn how to identify five major plant families by their flowers, leaves, and growth habits — and why removing these weeds early can protect your precious crops.
Today on Just Grow Something You'll Learn:
- The role of alternate hosts in pest and disease cycles
- How to identify Brassicaceae, Solanaceae, Asteraceae, Polygonaceae, and Amaranthaceae weeds
- Why flower structure is the key to early identification
- Tips for weed removal and garden protection
This episode is ad-free in support of Loveland Acres Farm. Please consider donating at lovelandacresfarm.org to support Scarlett's vital community work.
Visit our sponsor HeirloomRoses.com and save 20% on your order using code JUSTGROW.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There are times when I leave theweeds in and around my garden.
Flowering annuals that are not invasive or noxious, for
instance, are allowed to stay around the garden edges to help
attract pollinators. These are things like fleabane
and sweet Clover, and some of them are even beneficial, like
Yarrow. But then there are the weeds
that can be serious Trojan horses for our garden.
(00:22):
Those mustard family weeds lurking in the back corner that
can harbor the same viruses and pests that will wreak havoc on
our broccoli and our kale. Or that beautiful datura that is
actually a nightshade that will happily spread tobacco mosaic
virus to your tomatoes. So today I'm Just Grow
Something. We're reviewing plant
(00:43):
identification of of five different plant families by
their most easily identifiable characteristics and why we would
want to remove them from the garden, whether that's due to
pests or diseases or both. By the end, you will have an
idea of what to look out for andwhen to pull these pesky
interlopers before they get a chance to create problems for
(01:06):
the plants that you do want producing.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast I am your friendin the garden, teaching evidence
based techniques to help you grow your favourites and build
(01:27):
confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. OK my gardening friends, before
we dig into this week's episode,I have an ask of you.
You will notice that this episode has no ads.
There are no dynamically inserted advertisements in this
(01:51):
episode, so just one sponsor mention and that's it.
I use ads to help cover the costof creating this show.
I have done it in one form or another since the very beginning
and it has helped to cover the operating expenses.
You get to listen for free. And for some of you, that
payment for that is in the form of listening to the ads, just
(02:12):
like radio spots or TV commercials or pop up ads on the
Internet, right? Today, we are skipping that.
And instead, I would love for you to stop what you're doing,
pause this episode. And if you're in a space where
it's safe to do so, so not whileyou're driving, please.
I would love for you to go to Loveland Acres Farm dot org.
(02:38):
There is a link in the show description.
It's the only link this week in the show description other than
our sponsor. It's also in the e-mail this
morning to make it easy for everybody.
I would love for you to go to their online shop, Scroll down
and select donate and donate just $5 to this organization.
(02:59):
Scarlett, who runs this very small scale farm in her rural
Wisconsin community, has been doing so much for the kids in
her community and the adults whocare for them.
She has created programs for teaching kids with disabilities
about hatching chickens and tending goats and growing food.
(03:23):
She has donated tons of food to kids who need it the most,
especially in the summer when schools are out and there are no
school lunches. Scarlett was an inner city
special Ed teacher before becoming a farmer, so she
understands what happens first hand in the summer to kids who
depend on school lunches. She has also partnered with
organizations to donate eggs andsoaps made from her goat's milk
(03:45):
to those in need. Loveland Acres, like so many
farms out there right now, was the recipient of of grant money
designated for buying produce from local farms to distribute
to those in need. But those funds have been cut
off now and that on its own, itsown would not be a deal breaker
(04:06):
for Scarlett. Obviously she has managed to
operate without those funds in previous years.
The bigger problem is Scarlett is being harassed and stalked
again by local individuals who don't like that Scarlett is
farming while black. Scarlett is mixed race and she
(04:27):
has faced this harassment beforeand it stopped for a while due
to her going to court #1 but also because the farm got some
good attention because Scarlett was on the Kelly Clarkson Show
last year. But you know, that's the way
those things work is you get allof that attention and you get a
bunch of support. But then as the months go on,
(04:51):
that support sort of dries up and the eyes now are no longer
on the farm and it's not in the spotlight anymore.
So now these harassing individuals have decided to pick
up their pitchforks again and are causing Scarlett to fear for
the safety of the visiting children to her farm.
And of course, I'm sure for herself, she's doing all this
(05:12):
while trying to farm and feed kids and provide mutual aid for
those in her community, and doing all of it while battling
severe chronic illnesses, lupus and gastroparesis specifically,
which is what took her out of the classroom and landed her on
the farm to begin with. She has had local support and
(05:36):
she does have a fantastic farm mentor who has been helping her.
But unfortunately this is just astory that I see way too often
in small rural communities. And now Scarlett is not only
short the funds from the USDA grants, but she has had to
temporarily suspend some of those very beneficial programs
(05:57):
that she runs so that she can spend time heading to the
courthouse to deal with things that she just should not have to
be dealing with. There are a ton of ways to
support Scarlett and her missionon her site, whether it's
donating or buying a product of some kind.
But there are about 2000 of you who listen to this podcast every
week. And so if we all just stopped
(06:20):
and sent her $5, that would literally cover the grant funds
that she lost with all of the cuts.
And it would put those desperately needed programs that
she runs right back on track. And it would also likely
alleviate a lot of the stress that she is probably we going
through right now, which are likely causing even more health
issues for her that she does notneed.
(06:42):
Loveland Acres farm.org is the website.
If you have ever gotten anythingof value out of this podcast or
my YouTube or my social media oranything, go right now, make a
donation and then come back and enjoy this ad free episode as my
thank you. All right, let's talk plant
(07:05):
families that we grow in the garden and the weeds in that
family that want to cause problems for them.
There are a few reasons why weeds that are in the same
family as the crops that we are growing can be detrimental.
The two main ones really are diseases and pests.
(07:27):
So what we'll call these, these weed plants, they are often
referred to as alternate hosts, right?
Meaning if the insects that are trying to come into our garden
don't find their preferred host,like maybe our tomato plant or
our eggplant or you know, our broccoli or our cauliflower.
(07:48):
If they can't immediately find these plants, they are going to
find an alternate host, something that they can hang out
on and can feed on and breed on so they can find the one that
they prefer. So how this works is they come
in maybe in the early, early spring, they find the weeds
(08:09):
along the outer edges of our gardens that are in the same
family. And they land on these plants
and they hang out in these plants.
And they just sort of wait untilthe stuff that we're growing
starts to get to maturity or starts to get big enough for
them to come in and predate on them.
And then they move from one plant to the other.
(08:29):
The same thing goes with the diseases.
So these plants are going to attract the same types of
diseases that we worry about keeping out of our garden.
And the more instable that we have of these diseases in and
around our garden areas, the more likely it is going to
continue to move through our garden and cause problems for
(08:51):
the crops that we want to grow. So it's pretty important for us
to remove these alternate hosts and keep them out of the garden
as a way of protecting the plants that we want to grow.
And the easiest way to identify these plants is usually by
looking at their flowers. Number one, you are likely going
(09:15):
to recognize them if you have ever grown anything in that
plant family before because as ageneral rule, the structure of
flowers within a plant family remains the same from variety to
variety. OK, so the flower that comes on
(09:37):
a wild nightshade is going to look like the flower that you
would see on your cultivated eggplant.
And if you look really, really closely, it's the same flower
structure as what you're going to see in your tomatoes.
They might look a little bit different on the surface, but
when you look down at the numberof petals and how many stamens,
(10:00):
etcetera, etcetera, they're going to be the same.
So this is one of the ways and really one of the easiest ways
to identify these weed versions of the plants that we are
growing. The second way is to look at the
leaves and the stems of the plant.
Now, this can sometimes be a bitmore difficult because the leaf
(10:22):
shape might be similar in a lot of ways, but there are plenty of
times when the leaf shape is notgoing to be the same.
I mean, if you look at somethinglike ragweed, there are three
different varieties of ragweed or types of ragweed that grow in
West Central Missouri. And I know this because I have
all three of them here on this farm, and each of their leaf
(10:44):
shapes and habits are completelydifferent.
So if you didn't know that they were three different varieties
of ragweed, you would not know that what you were looking at
was ragweed just by looking at the leaves.
But the stems are very similar. So while this method can be a
bit more difficult, it's great to know how to do this if we
(11:06):
don't want these plants to have a chance to flower.
So if we're trying to get them before they flower, then it's
good to be able to recognize these things before they get to
that point and have the opportunity to be able to spread
to spread. But you know, the easiest way
generally is to identify them bylooking at their flowers.
So let's look at what I would consider to be probably the top
(11:28):
five plant families that have weeds that are detrimental
either because they carry the same diseases and pests as the
plants that we're trying to grow, or because they can spread
so rapidly and so easily and choke out some of the plants
that we're wanting to grow. So the first thing we're going
to start with is the brassicas, right?
(11:49):
Brassicas, brassicas, this is the mustard family.
This is the things that are, youknow, cauliflower and broccoli
and kale and mustard. All of these things fall into
this plant family with the exception of like your broccoli
and your cauliflower, because wegenerally don't allow those to
go to seed. If you have ever seen like your,
(12:14):
your mustard or your what's another one that would you would
probably allow to go? I mean, kale, kale can can bolt
and go to seed. You know, radishes, radishes are
in this family. If you've ever seen a radish
bloom, right? All of those flowers look
exactly the same. You can tell something is in the
mustard family or is in the brassica family by looking at
(12:36):
the flowers. The flowers are very specific.
So Brassica flowers have 4 petals in a cross shape and
generally they are either a mustard yellow color or they are
white. And the mantra for the flowers
in the brassica family is 4 petals with six stamens, 4 tall
(12:56):
and two short. Now do I think that you're going
to remember that? Absolutely not.
But it is a very specific way toidentify brassicas.
SO4 petals and there are 6 stamens in the center.
Four of them are tall and two ofthem are short on every single
brassica you see, so the leaves are usually green.
(13:17):
They will often have a mustard odor so this is another way that
you can identify them before they even get to flowering.
After they flower they are goingto have seed pods that are
called siliques and these are like these skinny little pea
like shells. If you have ever seen radish go
(13:39):
to seed the little seed pods, all of the brassicas have a
version of that seed pod. By the way, if you have not
eaten radish seed pods when they're fresh and green, oh they
are chefs kiss. They are very, very good.
A lot of the time you are going to find these weeds in the
mustard family. So usually it's like wild
(14:00):
mustard shepherd's purse is 1, wild radish is 1.
They're often going to be kind of along the edges of the garden
areas or you will find them likein disturbed soil areas along a
roadside and they can very easily spread on the wind if
they are allowed to go to seed. One of the major problems with
(14:21):
these brassica weeds is they attract aphids, the cabbage
aphid, the turnip aphid, they love to feed on brassicas.
Now that in and of itself wouldn't be that big of a deal
because they generally aren't causing that many problems just
being themselves. But those aphids can transmit at
least 20 different viruses. And so we're talking things like
(14:45):
turnip mosaic virus, which are brassicas are very susceptible
to the other pests that like these brassicas are whiteflies
and silver leaf whitefly can also transmit viruses between
weeds and the brassicas that we are trying to grow in our
garden. The other thing that we are
concerned about with these sort of wild weedy brassicas is a
(15:08):
fungal disease called Alternariabrassica cola.
So it can cause black spot and the spores from that fungus can
travel from the weeds into our crops.
So not only do we have the aphids feeding on the mustard
weeds and picking up those viruses and then hopping onto
(15:28):
our broccoli or our kale and spreading that disease, but the
whiteflies can also carry them on their bodies and deposit them
when they feed. So we have this whole host of
insects that want to feed on ourbrassicas and they are over here
in these wild mustards and they're feeding over here and
(15:48):
then up now they come and they move over into our broccoli or
our kale or our other brassicas.So not only are they causing
damage to the plants by their feeding habits, but now they can
possibly also spread these diseases.
So if you identify wild brassicas, wild mustard of any
kind in and around your garden, pull them out.
(16:10):
Make sure that you are pulling them right at bloom time.
As soon as you recognize that flower as being someplace where
it's not supposed to be, it's not where you planted it.
And maybe even it is where you planted it because if you ever
noticed that you have weeds in your garden that tend to pop up
that seem to look exactly like the thing that you are actually
(16:32):
trying to grow. And it's very difficult to
identify them sometimes. Yeah.
So we just have to be very mindful of what we planted and
where. And if these things pop up and
we see them bloom, we got to yank them and get them out of
there. We do not want to leave those
seed pods to mature. You can also try to, if you have
(16:54):
started to have a problem with these aphids and whiteflies and
stuff, you can actually kind of try, you know, some insect
netting to reduce, you know, these things from coming in.
I always put insect netting overtop of my brassicas because not
necessarily aphids and whitefly.Really it's the cabbage moths
and the cabbage butterflies, which we didn't even mention.
(17:15):
Those also will come in off of these alternate hosts.
In my experience, they are less likely to be in those weed
versions for whatever reason. It's like they find the good,
they wait until they see the good stuff.
Or maybe it's the timing, I'm not sure.
I haven't had a problem with it in that manner.
But I do know that you know theythey are going to predate on my
(17:36):
Brassica. So I always, always, always make
sure that I'm covering the plants that I am intending to
grow with insect netting, which also makes it easier to identify
the things that aren't supposed to be there because hopefully
they are outside of that nettingbecause the netting also helps
to keep those kind of stray weedseeds from blowing in.
So identify early. Oftentimes you're not going to
(17:58):
know until these actually bloom.So as soon as they bloom, make
sure that you yank them and get them out of the garden.
OK, so the next one is the SolonACA family.
These are the nightshades. OK, so the nightshades that we
generally grow in our garden, things like Peppers, tomatoes,
eggplant, potatoes, right? You have likely seen, I would
(18:21):
hope, I hope if you're growing tomatoes that you've seen the
flowers. But you also, if you've seen
your potatoes ever flower, you know what these flowers look
like. Potatoes are kind of a larger
version of it, right? It's got those 5 fused petals
that form a star or a sort of tube shape.
(18:43):
They are usually purple or whiteor yellow.
So they probably the, I don't know, strongest version of this
that I see out in the gardens isdeadly Nightshade, A Tropa
belladonna. You can very, very clearly see
(19:04):
the, the, the flowers on these things.
And it's very immediately obvious that that is something
that is in the nightshade family.
It looks exactly like what you would see in terms of an
eggplant flower. It is large enough to be able to
see those 5 fused petals. And then if you were to go and
look at your tomatoes and you look very closely at those
(19:24):
tomato flowers, you're going to see it has the exact same shape,
the same fusion, etcetera. OK.
All of the fruits on all of these plants in this family is
actually a Berry or it is a capsule.
So the other shape that this flower will form, yes, it still
(19:46):
has these five fused petals, butit it forms a tube and this is
like jimson weed. If you ever seen jimson weed,
the the species name is Datura. They are very pretty.
They are really cool. They are actually poisonous when
it comes to like livestock and such.
They're not, they're, they can'teat the Torah.
They're not supposed to eat the Torah.
(20:07):
Jimson weed is actually often used for medicinal purposes, but
it can harbor a lot of the same viruses and insects and fungi
that will infiltrate our tomatoes and our eggplant and
our other nightshades. OK, so it's, it's really
important. Horse Nettle.
Is another weed example in this family.
(20:29):
So these can all harbor tobacco mosaic virus, they can all
harbor tomato yellow leaf curl virus, potato virus, right?
And these things will actually often overwinter in the weeds
and in the weed debris because let's think about it, if we're
(20:49):
not getting these weeds out of the garden area, if they're
maybe on the outer edges of maybe a less cultivated area
around our gardens or around ouryards.
And those weeds are allowed to just kind of, you know, be
debris over the winter time. If they had any of these
viruses, they can overwinter in those weeds.
(21:11):
And then we're cleaning out our garden area, right?
We're pulling out the plants from our gardens that are all in
these plant families. But if we leave the weeds, then
they can infect the crops that we plant the next season through
the insect vectors. So again, the aphids and the
whiteflies, those two are the main culprits that will spread
(21:35):
these viruses from those weeds into the crops that we want to
keep. And then the weeds can also host
fungi, and that are root fungus.And so it's a root rot that can
also be spread. And then hornworms also, go
figure, you know, those giant green worms that we don't want
(21:56):
in our tomatoes? Yeah, they can also be hosted in
these weeds. So once again, the aphids can
feed on the jimson weed or whatever weed is out there and
pick up the viruses and move them to your tomatoes.
And those weeds can retain thoseviruses through the winter and
reintroduce them in the spring. So you want to remove the entire
(22:18):
plant, roots and all. If you spot these guys, again,
you're looking for the flowers. It is difficult.
I will say the one that is super, super easy to identify
even before it gets its flowers is that deadly nightshade.
Why? Because it will bite you if you
go to grab it and you because you recognize it as a weed.
(22:42):
They have the sharpest thorns all over them.
They're on the stem, they're on the leaves.
It goes all the way down to the soil line.
You go to pull those suckers outand you got to get down
underneath like under the soil line in order to be able to pull
them out. So before they even flower you
will know when you are dealing with atropobeladonna, OK, But
(23:04):
the rest of them sometimes you may not be able to recognize
until they actually get those flowers on them.
The the Jimson weed is a little bit easier to detect because its
leaves are very toothed and theyhave these large funnel shaped
flowers which turns into a very spiky seed capsule.
(23:25):
The flowers are actually very pretty.
They are white and purple and that that seed capsule is
really, really interesting. But I tell you there are a ton
of seeds in that capsule. So even if you were going to use
Jimson weed medicinally and you have to let it flower, you're
(23:45):
using the leaves. Make sure that you remove these
plants before they produce that seed or you will have an
infestation of them. OK, and if you are allowing them
to grow, please make sure that you are doing it someplace that
is further away from your gardenarea.
And make sure when you remove any of these, you're removing
the entire plant, roots and all.And you likely want to wear
(24:08):
gloves. A lot of these plants can be
toxic in this family. There's a reason they call it
deadly nightshade, right? Even though it's a little bit of
a misnomer. But you know, there there's a
reason these things are, are, you know, considered to be
dangerous. You know why belladonna, you
know, is so well known, known asbeing a deadly poison or
whatever? They are toxic.
So make sure you are wearing gloves.
(24:28):
But do whatever you can to get these alternate weeds or these
alternate species in the nightshade family out of the
garden area so they don't infectyour good nightshades.
My beautiful rose Bush from Heirloom Roses has had no fewer
than 25 blooms already this season and she is still looking
(24:49):
just spectacular. Now is the time for me to worry
about a little bit of extra summer care.
We've just been through a massive heat wave here with heat
indexes well above 100°F, and itwas important to try and keep my
roses well hydrated and that kind of heat.
So I've made sure to mulch around the base of my Bush in
(25:10):
this container and then providedit some cool drinks in the heat
of the afternoon. And she is looking as robust as
ever. Of course, that strong own root
system provided by heirloomroses.com plants has
made it super easy for me to keep that plant healthy.
You can get your own resilient rose plant and save 20% by going
(25:30):
to heirloomroses.com and using code Just Grow to find the
perfect rose Bush to plant this fall to bring you through next
summer in full bloom and style. heirloomroses.com with code Just
Grow. The link is in the show notes.
Now these next three families are mainly florals that compete
(25:51):
with the plants in our gardens that we're growing for show.
But there are some vegetable species that are affected by
these. They can also, there are some in
here too that can be very, very aggressive self seeders and
spreaders. So not only do they harbor pests
and diseases of some of the flowers and the grains that we
may like to grow around our garden, but they can very
quickly take over if they are left to their own devices.
(26:14):
The first one is the Astoraceae family.
This is the Daisy family. These are going to be obvious in
terms of their flowers. They have those composite flower
heads, so like a dandelion or a Daisy or a Thistle.
It's a bunch of like tiny littleflowers that make the bigger
flower and the leaves on these are often very lobed or rough.
(26:36):
So if you think like Canada Thistle or mugwort and the what
the leaves look like of those, that is one of the ways that you
can identify this plant family prior to it actually developing
its flower heads. What are the problems with these
guys? Because I mean, I don't know, I
like daisies. I even like the look of
dandelions. I like sunflowers, right?
(26:57):
Wild sunflowers. What is the harm in letting
these guys just flower and do their thing?
Well, leaf miners and flea beetles #1 they will move
between the weed species and thecrops, like our lettuce or our
sunflowers. And another fungi, the rust
(27:18):
fungi, can also move between these weed species and these
crops, so the weeds again serve as alternate hosts.
Thistles are especially notorious for this, so even
though you might like the look of them, these insects and these
diseases can jump from the weed to the crop.
The rust spores will actually travel on the wind and so it's
(27:40):
super easy for that to spread toyour other plants.
If you have not had a problem with leaf miners or flea beetles
and you want to let the wild sunflowers and the wild daisies
and the wild dandelions do theirthing, then that's entirely up
to you. I would never say to allow
certain thistles to go because number one, in some areas they
(28:02):
are considered a noxious weed and they are required by law to
be removed. That's what it's like here for
thistles, specific types of thistles.
But also again, thistles are usually very spiky and spiny, so
be careful working in and aroundthem.
These really aren't very easily identified before they flower
(28:23):
unless you can really recognize what those leaves look like.
So oftentimes you kind of have to wait until those flowers pop
out. But as soon as you identify
them, then you need to get them out of there before those flower
seeds produce the seeds, becausethen they are going to spread
like crazy. But also, you don't want those
(28:43):
rust spores to be able to travelon the wind and get over to your
crops that you're trying to grow.
The next one is the Polygon ACA family.
This is not weed or the buckwheat family.
These are very easy to identify by their hollow stems and their
swollen nodes. So if now remember when we're
(29:07):
talking about nodes, this is theleaf node.
This is where the leaves join the stem.
We have the node and we have theinter node, which is the space
between those notes. The nodes on anything that's in
this buckwheat family are swollen.
They look like they have joints and you will be able, once you
recognize this and you've seen this, you will very easily be
(29:29):
able to recognize them. Again, you can just go look up a
picture of buckwheat and anything that is in that family
is going to have that same sort of structure.
The leaves have a sheath on them.
It's called an ochrea and that is right there around the stem.
So it has that little sheath andthen they all have these tiny
clustered like greenish white flowers.
(29:50):
Again, if you go and look up buckwheat, you will see what the
flowers look like. Anything in that family is going
to have that same thing. Our concern here is the knotweed
because Japanese knotweed will choke a garden out faster than
you can believe, and it also will host some root pathogens as
(30:11):
well. There aren't any like direct
insect pests, and I'm aware of that go from, you know, the, the
knotweed to anything that's in the buckwheat family that you're
trying to grow in your garden. Like we grow buckwheat as a
cover crop in the summertime because it grows so very
quickly. Well, the problem with that
really rapid growth is that knotweed also grows that quickly
(30:35):
and it will do exactly what it sounds like.
It knots around the plants and just chokes out a garden.
So there are no direct insect pests, but it is a very, very
aggressive spreader. So it will absolutely compromise
the health of your plants in your garden.
It not only chokes from up top, but it spreads through
underground rhizomes and those rhizomes can also carry disease.
(30:58):
So we need to make sure when we are removing these.
So recognize the nodes and the sheath at the leaf stem
junction. We need to dig really deep and
remove all of the root fragmentsof these because any roots left
in the soil will sprout again. This the knotweed is very, very
(31:19):
persistent. So if you discover that you have
knotweed in your garden, you will likely need to monitor it
like throughout the entire growing season to make sure that
you continue to remove it all sothat it doesn't come back again.
And then finally, we have the amaranth ACA family.
This is the amaranth family, otherwise known as pigweed.
(31:40):
So if you know what amaranth is,right, if you've ever even grown
it, amaranth is often grown for the young leaves, but it's also
grown for the seeds is like a grain.
They have very, very dense flower spikes.
They are small. They are greenish or reddish
colored. The leaves are very simple.
They're sometimes slightly fleshy.
(32:01):
They are alternate of each otheron that stem and the most common
weeds that are in this family are pigweed, which has a bunch
of different varieties. There's like rough pigweed,
there's smooth pigweed. Lamb's quarters is also in this
plant family. If you've ever seen lamb's
quarters in your garden, I know a lot of people will eat lamb's
quarters. It is a nutritious spring green,
(32:24):
but as it pops up and it starts to develop those seeds, it can
spread like crazy. Water hemp, same thing.
It is also in this family. The problem with these guys is
again, those dense flower spikesthat we like and we want on the
amarinth that we're growing as acrop are also how a lot of these
(32:44):
will spread, pigweed especially.And it's very difficult
sometimes to distinguish betweenthe two.
And you will see, you know, later on in the season if it has
come up and those those seeds start to dry and then they just
drop everywhere. The problem with these weeds are
the fact that they will host leaf spot and mosaic viruses,
(33:08):
including some of those aphid transmitted types that can jump
to our spinach or our Shard or our beets.
So these weeds can spread the pathogens, the pollen can spread
the pathogens, the insects can spread the pathogens between the
weeds and the crops that we are trying to grow.
(33:29):
Those very fine seeds can also blow into the garden and then
start sprouting the seeds, you know, sprouting the weeds from
within the garden. They may stay in the soil until
the following year and then they're coming up.
The insects can pick up the viruses from the weed that
inoculate our veggies with it. We do not want that.
So this is one that you definitely need to catch before
(33:50):
flowering if you can recognize them or immediately upon
flowering. And one of the ways that you can
control these though, is as you see them come up, sometimes
they're going to come up in these very sort of dense Groves.
This is 1 where they are an annual.
So they're not reproducing by rhizomes or anything else under
(34:10):
the soil. So it is something that you can
cover to make sure that the weeds are controlled.
So if you have a tarp or something and you have an
infestation of these types of weeds, you can cover it with the
tarp to basically choke those out, keep them from getting any
of the sun. That's also going to keep them
from flowering. And hopefully this will clear
your garden out of those. But if you have individual ones
(34:32):
here and there, then it just hand pulling is fine.
But make sure that number one, you are pulling them before you
flower and then two, if you see that they have any type of a
virus or anything to make sure that you do not compost any
infected plant material. The lesson in all of this, and
these were only five of the plant families that I think
(34:55):
probably have a lot of the problem.
There are others that maybe not necessarily, you know, are that
we're growing anything that's inthe same plant family that's in
the garden, but that are, you know, definitely problems.
I didn't cover those because there are too many, but these
are the ones that I think you probably are mainly going to be
worried about that look very similar to some of the things
that we grow in the garden. So your most reliable family
(35:19):
clue is that flower shape. But if you can teach yourself
sort of the cues of what to lookfor in the stem or the leaf
pattern, but then also specifically the flower shape,
if you see them pop up, you'll be able to recognize them very
quickly and be able to pull themearly, preferably with the roots
syntax because you never know whether or not it's one of those
(35:39):
ones that can reproduce very easily from the roots.
And then of course, you want to protect the crops that you are
growing that you want to keep, either by using barriers or
insect netting, but also in keeping your tools clean so that
we're not transmitting things from one to the other,
especially when we're using tools to clear out the weeds.
We don't want to use those same tools on the plants that we're
(36:00):
trying to keep before we have cleaned them.
That's it for today. Please go to
lovelandacresfarm.org and donatejust $5 or more to Scarlet and
the work that she is doing up there in Wisconsin.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
There are times when I leave theweeds in and around my garden.
Flowering annuals that are not invasive or noxious, for
instance, are allowed to stay around the garden edges to help
attract pollinators. These are things like fleabane
and sweet Clover, and some of them are even beneficial, like
Yarrow. But then there are the weeds
that can be serious Trojan horses for our garden.
(00:22):
Those mustard family weeds lurking in the back corner that
can harbor the same viruses and pests that will wreak havoc on
our broccoli and our kale. Or that beautiful datura that is
actually a nightshade that will happily spread tobacco mosaic
virus to your tomatoes. So today I'm Just Grow
Something. We're reviewing plant
(00:43):
identification of of five different plant families by
their most easily identifiable characteristics and why we would
want to remove them from the garden, whether that's due to
pests or diseases or both. By the end, you will have an
idea of what to look out for andwhen to pull these pesky
interlopers before they get a chance to create problems for
(01:06):
the plants that you do want producing.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast I am your friendin the garden, teaching evidence
based techniques to help you grow your favourites and build
(01:27):
confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. OK my gardening friends, before
we dig into this week's episode,I have an ask of you.
You will notice that this episode has no ads.
There are no dynamically inserted advertisements in this
(01:51):
episode, so just one sponsor mention and that's it.
I use ads to help cover the costof creating this show.
I have done it in one form or another since the very beginning
and it has helped to cover the operating expenses.
You get to listen for free. And for some of you, that
payment for that is in the form of listening to the ads, just
(02:12):
like radio spots or TV commercials or pop up ads on the
Internet, right? Today, we are skipping that.
And instead, I would love for you to stop what you're doing,
pause this episode. And if you're in a space where
it's safe to do so, so not whileyou're driving, please.
I would love for you to go to Loveland Acres Farm dot org.
(02:38):
There is a link in the show description.
It's the only link this week in the show description other than
our sponsor. It's also in the e-mail this
morning to make it easy for everybody.
I would love for you to go to their online shop, Scroll down
and select donate and donate just $5 to this organization.
(02:59):
Scarlett, who runs this very small scale farm in her rural
Wisconsin community, has been doing so much for the kids in
her community and the adults whocare for them.
She has created programs for teaching kids with disabilities
about hatching chickens and tending goats and growing food.
(03:23):
She has donated tons of food to kids who need it the most,
especially in the summer when schools are out and there are no
school lunches. Scarlett was an inner city
special Ed teacher before becoming a farmer, so she
understands what happens first hand in the summer to kids who
depend on school lunches. She has also partnered with
organizations to donate eggs andsoaps made from her goat's milk
(03:45):
to those in need. Loveland Acres, like so many
farms out there right now, was the recipient of of grant money
designated for buying produce from local farms to distribute
to those in need. But those funds have been cut
off now and that on its own, itsown would not be a deal breaker
(04:06):
for Scarlett. Obviously she has managed to
operate without those funds in previous years.
The bigger problem is Scarlett is being harassed and stalked
again by local individuals who don't like that Scarlett is
farming while black. Scarlett is mixed race and she
(04:27):
has faced this harassment beforeand it stopped for a while due
to her going to court #1 but also because the farm got some
good attention because Scarlett was on the Kelly Clarkson Show
last year. But you know, that's the way
those things work is you get allof that attention and you get a
bunch of support. But then as the months go on,
(04:51):
that support sort of dries up and the eyes now are no longer
on the farm and it's not in the spotlight anymore.
So now these harassing individuals have decided to pick
up their pitchforks again and are causing Scarlett to fear for
the safety of the visiting children to her farm.
And of course, I'm sure for herself, she's doing all this
(05:12):
while trying to farm and feed kids and provide mutual aid for
those in her community, and doing all of it while battling
severe chronic illnesses, lupus and gastroparesis specifically,
which is what took her out of the classroom and landed her on
the farm to begin with. She has had local support and
(05:36):
she does have a fantastic farm mentor who has been helping her.
But unfortunately this is just astory that I see way too often
in small rural communities. And now Scarlett is not only
short the funds from the USDA grants, but she has had to
temporarily suspend some of those very beneficial programs
(05:57):
that she runs so that she can spend time heading to the
courthouse to deal with things that she just should not have to
be dealing with. There are a ton of ways to
support Scarlett and her missionon her site, whether it's
donating or buying a product of some kind.
But there are about 2000 of you who listen to this podcast every
week. And so if we all just stopped
(06:20):
and sent her $5, that would literally cover the grant funds
that she lost with all of the cuts.
And it would put those desperately needed programs that
she runs right back on track. And it would also likely
alleviate a lot of the stress that she is probably we going
through right now, which are likely causing even more health
issues for her that she does notneed.
(06:42):
Loveland Acres farm.org is the website.
If you have ever gotten anythingof value out of this podcast or
my YouTube or my social media oranything, go right now, make a
donation and then come back and enjoy this ad free episode as my
thank you. All right, let's talk plant
(07:05):
families that we grow in the garden and the weeds in that
family that want to cause problems for them.
There are a few reasons why weeds that are in the same
family as the crops that we are growing can be detrimental.
The two main ones really are diseases and pests.
(07:27):
So what we'll call these, these weed plants, they are often
referred to as alternate hosts, right?
Meaning if the insects that are trying to come into our garden
don't find their preferred host,like maybe our tomato plant or
our eggplant or you know, our broccoli or our cauliflower.
(07:48):
If they can't immediately find these plants, they are going to
find an alternate host, something that they can hang out
on and can feed on and breed on so they can find the one that
they prefer. So how this works is they come
in maybe in the early, early spring, they find the weeds
(08:09):
along the outer edges of our gardens that are in the same
family. And they land on these plants
and they hang out in these plants.
And they just sort of wait untilthe stuff that we're growing
starts to get to maturity or starts to get big enough for
them to come in and predate on them.
And then they move from one plant to the other.
(08:29):
The same thing goes with the diseases.
So these plants are going to attract the same types of
diseases that we worry about keeping out of our garden.
And the more instable that we have of these diseases in and
around our garden areas, the more likely it is going to
continue to move through our garden and cause problems for
(08:51):
the crops that we want to grow. So it's pretty important for us
to remove these alternate hosts and keep them out of the garden
as a way of protecting the plants that we want to grow.
And the easiest way to identify these plants is usually by
looking at their flowers. Number one, you are likely going
(09:15):
to recognize them if you have ever grown anything in that
plant family before because as ageneral rule, the structure of
flowers within a plant family remains the same from variety to
variety. OK, so the flower that comes on
(09:37):
a wild nightshade is going to look like the flower that you
would see on your cultivated eggplant.
And if you look really, really closely, it's the same flower
structure as what you're going to see in your tomatoes.
They might look a little bit different on the surface, but
when you look down at the numberof petals and how many stamens,
(10:00):
etcetera, etcetera, they're going to be the same.
So this is one of the ways and really one of the easiest ways
to identify these weed versions of the plants that we are
growing. The second way is to look at the
leaves and the stems of the plant.
Now, this can sometimes be a bitmore difficult because the leaf
(10:22):
shape might be similar in a lot of ways, but there are plenty of
times when the leaf shape is notgoing to be the same.
I mean, if you look at somethinglike ragweed, there are three
different varieties of ragweed or types of ragweed that grow in
West Central Missouri. And I know this because I have
all three of them here on this farm, and each of their leaf
(10:44):
shapes and habits are completelydifferent.
So if you didn't know that they were three different varieties
of ragweed, you would not know that what you were looking at
was ragweed just by looking at the leaves.
But the stems are very similar. So while this method can be a
bit more difficult, it's great to know how to do this if we
(11:06):
don't want these plants to have a chance to flower.
So if we're trying to get them before they flower, then it's
good to be able to recognize these things before they get to
that point and have the opportunity to be able to spread
to spread. But you know, the easiest way
generally is to identify them bylooking at their flowers.
So let's look at what I would consider to be probably the top
(11:28):
five plant families that have weeds that are detrimental
either because they carry the same diseases and pests as the
plants that we're trying to grow, or because they can spread
so rapidly and so easily and choke out some of the plants
that we're wanting to grow. So the first thing we're going
to start with is the brassicas, right?
(11:49):
Brassicas, brassicas, this is the mustard family.
This is the things that are, youknow, cauliflower and broccoli
and kale and mustard. All of these things fall into
this plant family with the exception of like your broccoli
and your cauliflower, because wegenerally don't allow those to
go to seed. If you have ever seen like your,
(12:14):
your mustard or your what's another one that would you would
probably allow to go? I mean, kale, kale can can bolt
and go to seed. You know, radishes, radishes are
in this family. If you've ever seen a radish
bloom, right? All of those flowers look
exactly the same. You can tell something is in the
mustard family or is in the brassica family by looking at
(12:36):
the flowers. The flowers are very specific.
So Brassica flowers have 4 petals in a cross shape and
generally they are either a mustard yellow color or they are
white. And the mantra for the flowers
in the brassica family is 4 petals with six stamens, 4 tall
(12:56):
and two short. Now do I think that you're going
to remember that? Absolutely not.
But it is a very specific way toidentify brassicas.
SO4 petals and there are 6 stamens in the center.
Four of them are tall and two ofthem are short on every single
brassica you see, so the leaves are usually green.
(13:17):
They will often have a mustard odor so this is another way that
you can identify them before they even get to flowering.
After they flower they are goingto have seed pods that are
called siliques and these are like these skinny little pea
like shells. If you have ever seen radish go
(13:39):
to seed the little seed pods, all of the brassicas have a
version of that seed pod. By the way, if you have not
eaten radish seed pods when they're fresh and green, oh they
are chefs kiss. They are very, very good.
A lot of the time you are going to find these weeds in the
mustard family. So usually it's like wild
(14:00):
mustard shepherd's purse is 1, wild radish is 1.
They're often going to be kind of along the edges of the garden
areas or you will find them likein disturbed soil areas along a
roadside and they can very easily spread on the wind if
they are allowed to go to seed. One of the major problems with
(14:21):
these brassica weeds is they attract aphids, the cabbage
aphid, the turnip aphid, they love to feed on brassicas.
Now that in and of itself wouldn't be that big of a deal
because they generally aren't causing that many problems just
being themselves. But those aphids can transmit at
least 20 different viruses. And so we're talking things like
(14:45):
turnip mosaic virus, which are brassicas are very susceptible
to the other pests that like these brassicas are whiteflies
and silver leaf whitefly can also transmit viruses between
weeds and the brassicas that we are trying to grow in our
garden. The other thing that we are
concerned about with these sort of wild weedy brassicas is a
(15:08):
fungal disease called Alternariabrassica cola.
So it can cause black spot and the spores from that fungus can
travel from the weeds into our crops.
So not only do we have the aphids feeding on the mustard
weeds and picking up those viruses and then hopping onto
(15:28):
our broccoli or our kale and spreading that disease, but the
whiteflies can also carry them on their bodies and deposit them
when they feed. So we have this whole host of
insects that want to feed on ourbrassicas and they are over here
in these wild mustards and they're feeding over here and
(15:48):
then up now they come and they move over into our broccoli or
our kale or our other brassicas.So not only are they causing
damage to the plants by their feeding habits, but now they can
possibly also spread these diseases.
So if you identify wild brassicas, wild mustard of any
kind in and around your garden, pull them out.
(16:10):
Make sure that you are pulling them right at bloom time.
As soon as you recognize that flower as being someplace where
it's not supposed to be, it's not where you planted it.
And maybe even it is where you planted it because if you ever
noticed that you have weeds in your garden that tend to pop up
that seem to look exactly like the thing that you are actually
(16:32):
trying to grow. And it's very difficult to
identify them sometimes. Yeah.
So we just have to be very mindful of what we planted and
where. And if these things pop up and
we see them bloom, we got to yank them and get them out of
there. We do not want to leave those
seed pods to mature. You can also try to, if you have
(16:54):
started to have a problem with these aphids and whiteflies and
stuff, you can actually kind of try, you know, some insect
netting to reduce, you know, these things from coming in.
I always put insect netting overtop of my brassicas because not
necessarily aphids and whitefly.Really it's the cabbage moths
and the cabbage butterflies, which we didn't even mention.
(17:15):
Those also will come in off of these alternate hosts.
In my experience, they are less likely to be in those weed
versions for whatever reason. It's like they find the good,
they wait until they see the good stuff.
Or maybe it's the timing, I'm not sure.
I haven't had a problem with it in that manner.
But I do know that you know theythey are going to predate on my
(17:36):
Brassica. So I always, always, always make
sure that I'm covering the plants that I am intending to
grow with insect netting, which also makes it easier to identify
the things that aren't supposed to be there because hopefully
they are outside of that nettingbecause the netting also helps
to keep those kind of stray weedseeds from blowing in.
So identify early. Oftentimes you're not going to
(17:58):
know until these actually bloom.So as soon as they bloom, make
sure that you yank them and get them out of the garden.
OK, so the next one is the SolonACA family.
These are the nightshades. OK, so the nightshades that we
generally grow in our garden, things like Peppers, tomatoes,
eggplant, potatoes, right? You have likely seen, I would
(18:21):
hope, I hope if you're growing tomatoes that you've seen the
flowers. But you also, if you've seen
your potatoes ever flower, you know what these flowers look
like. Potatoes are kind of a larger
version of it, right? It's got those 5 fused petals
that form a star or a sort of tube shape.
(18:43):
They are usually purple or whiteor yellow.
So they probably the, I don't know, strongest version of this
that I see out in the gardens isdeadly Nightshade, A Tropa
belladonna. You can very, very clearly see
(19:04):
the, the, the flowers on these things.
And it's very immediately obvious that that is something
that is in the nightshade family.
It looks exactly like what you would see in terms of an
eggplant flower. It is large enough to be able to
see those 5 fused petals. And then if you were to go and
look at your tomatoes and you look very closely at those
(19:24):
tomato flowers, you're going to see it has the exact same shape,
the same fusion, etcetera. OK.
All of the fruits on all of these plants in this family is
actually a Berry or it is a capsule.
So the other shape that this flower will form, yes, it still
(19:46):
has these five fused petals, butit it forms a tube and this is
like jimson weed. If you ever seen jimson weed,
the the species name is Datura. They are very pretty.
They are really cool. They are actually poisonous when
it comes to like livestock and such.
They're not, they're, they can'teat the Torah.
They're not supposed to eat the Torah.
(20:07):
Jimson weed is actually often used for medicinal purposes, but
it can harbor a lot of the same viruses and insects and fungi
that will infiltrate our tomatoes and our eggplant and
our other nightshades. OK, so it's, it's really
important. Horse Nettle.
Is another weed example in this family.
(20:29):
So these can all harbor tobacco mosaic virus, they can all
harbor tomato yellow leaf curl virus, potato virus, right?
And these things will actually often overwinter in the weeds
and in the weed debris because let's think about it, if we're
(20:49):
not getting these weeds out of the garden area, if they're
maybe on the outer edges of maybe a less cultivated area
around our gardens or around ouryards.
And those weeds are allowed to just kind of, you know, be
debris over the winter time. If they had any of these
viruses, they can overwinter in those weeds.
(21:11):
And then we're cleaning out our garden area, right?
We're pulling out the plants from our gardens that are all in
these plant families. But if we leave the weeds, then
they can infect the crops that we plant the next season through
the insect vectors. So again, the aphids and the
whiteflies, those two are the main culprits that will spread
(21:35):
these viruses from those weeds into the crops that we want to
keep. And then the weeds can also host
fungi, and that are root fungus.And so it's a root rot that can
also be spread. And then hornworms also, go
figure, you know, those giant green worms that we don't want
(21:56):
in our tomatoes? Yeah, they can also be hosted in
these weeds. So once again, the aphids can
feed on the jimson weed or whatever weed is out there and
pick up the viruses and move them to your tomatoes.
And those weeds can retain thoseviruses through the winter and
reintroduce them in the spring. So you want to remove the entire
(22:18):
plant, roots and all. If you spot these guys, again,
you're looking for the flowers. It is difficult.
I will say the one that is super, super easy to identify
even before it gets its flowers is that deadly nightshade.
Why? Because it will bite you if you
go to grab it and you because you recognize it as a weed.
(22:42):
They have the sharpest thorns all over them.
They're on the stem, they're on the leaves.
It goes all the way down to the soil line.
You go to pull those suckers outand you got to get down
underneath like under the soil line in order to be able to pull
them out. So before they even flower you
will know when you are dealing with atropobeladonna, OK, But
(23:04):
the rest of them sometimes you may not be able to recognize
until they actually get those flowers on them.
The the Jimson weed is a little bit easier to detect because its
leaves are very toothed and theyhave these large funnel shaped
flowers which turns into a very spiky seed capsule.
(23:25):
The flowers are actually very pretty.
They are white and purple and that that seed capsule is
really, really interesting. But I tell you there are a ton
of seeds in that capsule. So even if you were going to use
Jimson weed medicinally and you have to let it flower, you're
(23:45):
using the leaves. Make sure that you remove these
plants before they produce that seed or you will have an
infestation of them. OK, and if you are allowing them
to grow, please make sure that you are doing it someplace that
is further away from your gardenarea.
And make sure when you remove any of these, you're removing
the entire plant, roots and all.And you likely want to wear
(24:08):
gloves. A lot of these plants can be
toxic in this family. There's a reason they call it
deadly nightshade, right? Even though it's a little bit of
a misnomer. But you know, there there's a
reason these things are, are, you know, considered to be
dangerous. You know why belladonna, you
know, is so well known, known asbeing a deadly poison or
whatever? They are toxic.
So make sure you are wearing gloves.
(24:28):
But do whatever you can to get these alternate weeds or these
alternate species in the nightshade family out of the
garden area so they don't infectyour good nightshades.
My beautiful rose Bush from Heirloom Roses has had no fewer
than 25 blooms already this season and she is still looking
(24:49):
just spectacular. Now is the time for me to worry
about a little bit of extra summer care.
We've just been through a massive heat wave here with heat
indexes well above 100°F, and itwas important to try and keep my
roses well hydrated and that kind of heat.
So I've made sure to mulch around the base of my Bush in
(25:10):
this container and then providedit some cool drinks in the heat
of the afternoon. And she is looking as robust as
ever. Of course, that strong own root
system provided by heirloomroses.com plants has
made it super easy for me to keep that plant healthy.
You can get your own resilient rose plant and save 20% by going
(25:30):
to heirloomroses.com and using code Just Grow to find the
perfect rose Bush to plant this fall to bring you through next
summer in full bloom and style. heirloomroses.com with code Just
Grow. The link is in the show notes.
Now these next three families are mainly florals that compete
(25:51):
with the plants in our gardens that we're growing for show.
But there are some vegetable species that are affected by
these. They can also, there are some in
here too that can be very, very aggressive self seeders and
spreaders. So not only do they harbor pests
and diseases of some of the flowers and the grains that we
may like to grow around our garden, but they can very
quickly take over if they are left to their own devices.
(26:14):
The first one is the Astoraceae family.
This is the Daisy family. These are going to be obvious in
terms of their flowers. They have those composite flower
heads, so like a dandelion or a Daisy or a Thistle.
It's a bunch of like tiny littleflowers that make the bigger
flower and the leaves on these are often very lobed or rough.
(26:36):
So if you think like Canada Thistle or mugwort and the what
the leaves look like of those, that is one of the ways that you
can identify this plant family prior to it actually developing
its flower heads. What are the problems with these
guys? Because I mean, I don't know, I
like daisies. I even like the look of
dandelions. I like sunflowers, right?
(26:57):
Wild sunflowers. What is the harm in letting
these guys just flower and do their thing?
Well, leaf miners and flea beetles #1 they will move
between the weed species and thecrops, like our lettuce or our
sunflowers. And another fungi, the rust
(27:18):
fungi, can also move between these weed species and these
crops, so the weeds again serve as alternate hosts.
Thistles are especially notorious for this, so even
though you might like the look of them, these insects and these
diseases can jump from the weed to the crop.
The rust spores will actually travel on the wind and so it's
(27:40):
super easy for that to spread toyour other plants.
If you have not had a problem with leaf miners or flea beetles
and you want to let the wild sunflowers and the wild daisies
and the wild dandelions do theirthing, then that's entirely up
to you. I would never say to allow
certain thistles to go because number one, in some areas they
(28:02):
are considered a noxious weed and they are required by law to
be removed. That's what it's like here for
thistles, specific types of thistles.
But also again, thistles are usually very spiky and spiny, so
be careful working in and aroundthem.
These really aren't very easily identified before they flower
(28:23):
unless you can really recognize what those leaves look like.
So oftentimes you kind of have to wait until those flowers pop
out. But as soon as you identify
them, then you need to get them out of there before those flower
seeds produce the seeds, becausethen they are going to spread
like crazy. But also, you don't want those
(28:43):
rust spores to be able to travelon the wind and get over to your
crops that you're trying to grow.
The next one is the Polygon ACA family.
This is not weed or the buckwheat family.
These are very easy to identify by their hollow stems and their
swollen nodes. So if now remember when we're
(29:07):
talking about nodes, this is theleaf node.
This is where the leaves join the stem.
We have the node and we have theinter node, which is the space
between those notes. The nodes on anything that's in
this buckwheat family are swollen.
They look like they have joints and you will be able, once you
recognize this and you've seen this, you will very easily be
(29:29):
able to recognize them. Again, you can just go look up a
picture of buckwheat and anything that is in that family
is going to have that same sort of structure.
The leaves have a sheath on them.
It's called an ochrea and that is right there around the stem.
So it has that little sheath andthen they all have these tiny
clustered like greenish white flowers.
(29:50):
Again, if you go and look up buckwheat, you will see what the
flowers look like. Anything in that family is going
to have that same thing. Our concern here is the knotweed
because Japanese knotweed will choke a garden out faster than
you can believe, and it also will host some root pathogens as
(30:11):
well. There aren't any like direct
insect pests, and I'm aware of that go from, you know, the, the
knotweed to anything that's in the buckwheat family that you're
trying to grow in your garden. Like we grow buckwheat as a
cover crop in the summertime because it grows so very
quickly. Well, the problem with that
really rapid growth is that knotweed also grows that quickly
(30:35):
and it will do exactly what it sounds like.
It knots around the plants and just chokes out a garden.
So there are no direct insect pests, but it is a very, very
aggressive spreader. So it will absolutely compromise
the health of your plants in your garden.
It not only chokes from up top, but it spreads through
underground rhizomes and those rhizomes can also carry disease.
(30:58):
So we need to make sure when we are removing these.
So recognize the nodes and the sheath at the leaf stem
junction. We need to dig really deep and
remove all of the root fragmentsof these because any roots left
in the soil will sprout again. This the knotweed is very, very
(31:19):
persistent. So if you discover that you have
knotweed in your garden, you will likely need to monitor it
like throughout the entire growing season to make sure that
you continue to remove it all sothat it doesn't come back again.
And then finally, we have the amaranth ACA family.
This is the amaranth family, otherwise known as pigweed.
(31:40):
So if you know what amaranth is,right, if you've ever even grown
it, amaranth is often grown for the young leaves, but it's also
grown for the seeds is like a grain.
They have very, very dense flower spikes.
They are small. They are greenish or reddish
colored. The leaves are very simple.
They're sometimes slightly fleshy.
(32:01):
They are alternate of each otheron that stem and the most common
weeds that are in this family are pigweed, which has a bunch
of different varieties. There's like rough pigweed,
there's smooth pigweed. Lamb's quarters is also in this
plant family. If you've ever seen lamb's
quarters in your garden, I know a lot of people will eat lamb's
quarters. It is a nutritious spring green,
(32:24):
but as it pops up and it starts to develop those seeds, it can
spread like crazy. Water hemp, same thing.
It is also in this family. The problem with these guys is
again, those dense flower spikesthat we like and we want on the
amarinth that we're growing as acrop are also how a lot of these
(32:44):
will spread, pigweed especially.And it's very difficult
sometimes to distinguish betweenthe two.
And you will see, you know, later on in the season if it has
come up and those those seeds start to dry and then they just
drop everywhere. The problem with these weeds are
the fact that they will host leaf spot and mosaic viruses,
(33:08):
including some of those aphid transmitted types that can jump
to our spinach or our Shard or our beets.
So these weeds can spread the pathogens, the pollen can spread
the pathogens, the insects can spread the pathogens between the
weeds and the crops that we are trying to grow.
(33:29):
Those very fine seeds can also blow into the garden and then
start sprouting the seeds, you know, sprouting the weeds from
within the garden. They may stay in the soil until
the following year and then they're coming up.
The insects can pick up the viruses from the weed that
inoculate our veggies with it. We do not want that.
So this is one that you definitely need to catch before
(33:50):
flowering if you can recognize them or immediately upon
flowering. And one of the ways that you can
control these though, is as you see them come up, sometimes
they're going to come up in these very sort of dense Groves.
This is 1 where they are an annual.
So they're not reproducing by rhizomes or anything else under
(34:10):
the soil. So it is something that you can
cover to make sure that the weeds are controlled.
So if you have a tarp or something and you have an
infestation of these types of weeds, you can cover it with the
tarp to basically choke those out, keep them from getting any
of the sun. That's also going to keep them
from flowering. And hopefully this will clear
your garden out of those. But if you have individual ones
(34:32):
here and there, then it just hand pulling is fine.
But make sure that number one, you are pulling them before you
flower and then two, if you see that they have any type of a
virus or anything to make sure that you do not compost any
infected plant material. The lesson in all of this, and
these were only five of the plant families that I think
(34:55):
probably have a lot of the problem.
There are others that maybe not necessarily, you know, are that
we're growing anything that's inthe same plant family that's in
the garden, but that are, you know, definitely problems.
I didn't cover those because there are too many, but these
are the ones that I think you probably are mainly going to be
worried about that look very similar to some of the things
that we grow in the garden. So your most reliable family
(35:19):
clue is that flower shape. But if you can teach yourself
sort of the cues of what to lookfor in the stem or the leaf
pattern, but then also specifically the flower shape,
if you see them pop up, you'll be able to recognize them very
quickly and be able to pull themearly, preferably with the roots
syntax because you never know whether or not it's one of those
(35:39):
ones that can reproduce very easily from the roots.
And then of course, you want to protect the crops that you are
growing that you want to keep, either by using barriers or
insect netting, but also in keeping your tools clean so that
we're not transmitting things from one to the other,
especially when we're using tools to clear out the weeds.
We don't want to use those same tools on the plants that we're
(36:00):
trying to keep before we have cleaned them.
That's it for today. Please go to
lovelandacresfarm.org and donatejust $5 or more to Scarlet and
the work that she is doing up there in Wisconsin.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
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