along the fence in front of the house i have made a bed
that is about 100 ft long
i brought in good soil several years ago
to make this bed that is 3 ft wide
it serves two purposes
to hold several xeric native plants that i never water
nature does that for me
after planting i covered the bed with a thick cover of
austin wod recycling native hardwood mulch
the bed is edged with a long row of limestone that was left
here by the previous owner
as our property has a slight slant towards the river
the bed also acts as a barrier to slow down any water runoff
that may occur during our texas downpours
this is called rainwater harvesting using berms or swales
so besides catching 30,000 gallons in our rainwater tanks
we also catch it with these swales or berms
also between my beds in the garden i have dug deep trenches
filled it with mulch and leaves so they are almost 2 ft deep
i calculated this will hold about 500 gallons of water
which keeps the underground soil moist during the
hot summer in my garden
now this long bed has these plants in them
texas sage greggs mistflower flame acanthus jerusulem sage
texas lantana mexican oregano fire bush possumhaw holly
wild arugula lady banksia rose pride of barbados
spineless cactus with a scattering of bluebonnets and
engelmann daisy
all providing color and flowers sometime during the year
the bees butterflies and hummingbirds love them
one problem though
is weeds
in the spring a carpet like growth of winter weeds occur
even on top of all that mulch
no roundup is used
beside being bad for the property
it would also damage these xeric plants
i have tried in the past to pull them up
an almost two day event
last year i just kept them weedeated
they go away in the hot weather only to return next winter
so i went to my handy dandy organic weed killing concoction
that is not toxic to the environment
unless you are the one getting sprayed
spray it on yourself and you instantly feel it
feels like fireant bites
it easily washes off
and it looks like the above picture
i sprayed once in hot sunny weather
it doesnt work as well in cloudy wet weather
in a few days they look all mostly dead
then
in a week or so i repeat the spraying to get those
who survived round one
now this weed killer does not kill the deep roots
but in these winter weeds that doesnt matter
they roots die and help provide some nutrition to the soil
1 oz of orange oil
1 tsp of dish washing soap
1 gallon of 9 or 10% pickling white vinegar
this is added to a pump sprayer
no water is added
its then sprayed on the weeds
kills em dead
be sure and rinse out the pump sprayer well since all this stuff
can damage the sprayer if left inside
the organicgreen doctor
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