The issue to grow organically is a social one. Currently, there is much research being done by large-scale growers to adapt to the recent trends/popularity of organic growing. If this happens, it may in fact narrow the market niche created by the small organic market farmer.

If you are a market farmer growing on one acre or less, I cannot visualize a flip-side. Most likely you're composting, growing green crops, hand weeding, hoeing, and possibly using a no-till method of production. However, if you are a larger organic grower there is a flip side. The argument is that now you may require some of the very same energy resources as the conventional growers. As an example: tractors and other equipment, production/processing buildings requiring heat and lights, coolers for produce or flowers. And, if you sell your product regionally, you have to factor in fuel consumption.

And, of course, there is so much more open to debate/discussion in regards to large scale organic vs conventional farming. It isn't relevant to the small market growers frequenting this forum.

As of 2002, the Department of Agriculture requires certification in order to promote oneself as organic. They do visit farmers markets. We have seen vendors fined for having signs displayed stating they are organic when in fact they didn't feel it necessary to fill out all the paperwork required to become certified. I think one can say their flowers are managed using organic methods; but, it may be safer to use the term chemical free to avoid this issue if you're not certified organic.

Your question: "Are their chemicals out there to control weeds but to leave the flowers alone?" Yes. Of course.

Trish

If you mean, "is there something I can spray on every square inch of the garden and kill every single weed but not harm any flower," I don't know of any such thing.

There are non-selective herbicides like Roundup that will kill a wide variety of weeds and leave the flowers alone, but only if you don't spray any on the flowers. There are herbicides that will kill lots of kinds of grass and pretty much leave most of the flowers alone, but they won't kill broad-leafed weeds and they can kill ornamental grasses.

Trish, what did you have in mind?

Neil, Are you asking what herbicides we use? Or, in general what do I have in mind? Writing a memoir sounds pretty good; but, perhaps I should just take a nap and ponder that a bit. My Life According to Flowerfarmer Which May or May Not Actually Have Any Bearing on Anything. See what I mean? Sleep deprivation is never a good thing.

Brian does ask a valid question; but, he also stated he wasn't planning on changing any of his growing practices. You're asking a hypothetical question just for the sake of discussion, Brian?

Trish

Trish, the honest answer is, Im not changing a thing in my soil.
. The reason for starting this thread was just to see what other people are doing not to judge or to say its right or wrong.

We all have ways of doing the things we love there are some people who grow things just to make $$$.

For them that works,
I love the field work and love selling am I going to get rich?? no.

But I love what I do and love learning new things every day.

Brian kc0kfg

If any of you have to contend with bermuda grass you sure might be tempted to use some herbicide; as I am; especially when my "old" back can only handle so much bending over and weeding. Even the smallest stolen left in the soil will re-root itself. I wish they had left the grass where it came from - in Bermuda (if I am correct in assuming that is where it came from). I don't know that even soil solarization will kill it - and of course that would mean leaving precious growing area fallow for some time and the cost of all that plastic and labor to put it in.

Linda

I can tell you what I did with weeds. Whether or not it's useful to anyone is a good question. As far as I know, there is no harmless chemical you can just spray on everything that will work the way Roundup does.

I don't like putting potentially-harmful chemicals into the environment. There are many different strategies for weeds. I was not interested in spraying; although I didn't grow that much, spraying everything without a major investment in a spraying system wasn't an option. I had to kill quackgrass roots before even starting to plant - I'd already learned the impossible problem that resulted if quackgrass roots weren't killed ahead of time. The techniques I used were rototilling repeatedly, a week or two apart, four or five times, before planting anything. I only did that in areas that would be used for annuals and IF there was enough time to get it done once it was dry enough but before it was warm enough to plant. It has the drawback of possibly delaying planting and certainly of using a lot of fossil fuel and making diesel exhaust. And all that rototilling isn't good for the soil. For planting perennials, I'd start with the same treatment, but then put down black weed-blocker cloth and transplant into holes in it. Any weeds that came up through that hole had to be pulled by hand as they were right up around the stem of the plant. I rototilled between the rows several times a season to discourage new weeds, for a few years, then I tried cover-cropping with cereal rye and hairy vetch (the only cover crops that really grow here), for a couple of years. That worked pretty well the first year but was a disaster the second year, being overgrown by bindweed plants, apparently grown from seeds from plants I'd never even seen the previous year. Apparently bindweed has no problem flowering and making seed even when small and low along the ground, so low that mowing doesn't have much effect.

My conclusion is that organic methods are time, effort, and money-consumptive. Roundup is expensive but a tractor is more so. Ditto the time and effort commitments. Some of the methods I used had other drawbacks of their own. Will I continue to use organic methods? Absolutely. I will be growing only a fraction of what I'd been growing, just for myself, not for market any more, which makes weed control a lot easier!

Jeanne

Linda,
Many large cutflower growers follow a conventional farming system, and use herbicides. The sustainable farmer falls somewhere between conventional and organic. He takes as his concept man as part of nature. We feel we are good stewards of the land; and, as sustainable farmers, we create a healthy, living soil, grow cover crops, and generally avoid herbicides and pesticides except in particular circumstances. We have woodlots, ponds, hedgerows in order to create a diverse habitat for the "good bugs." A sustainable farmer will judiciously use Round Up. Bermuda Grass is a subterranean perennial weed requiring chemical control. Another weed is bindweed. Attempts to control these mechanically are generally not successful. According to my favorite cutflower grower, a tractor in the field 8-10-12 times per season does more harm to the environment than the initial use of Round Up.

Trish

Jeanne, I don't like using chemicals either, so most of my major plantings are in ground cover cloth with bark laid over the top, including 800 or more lavender plants which were planted from plugs and holes cut in the cloth, my hillside herb garden planted from 3 inch pots and my garden roses planted bareroot and then cloth laid around them, front yard shrubs with cloth laid round them after they were planted, fruit trees and lawn trees have a circle of ground cover cloth around them. The cloth really helps minimize weeds especially if there is drip to each plant - except the bermuda will travel over the top and root anywhere it can.

Trish, I don't use herbicide in my herbs or lavender - these are all hand weeded - I have tried Roundup this year along fence lines and other areas because my property is too large to hand weed everything - I did try not using ground cover cloth in one bed of bulbs set in variegated ground cover and the bermuda took over so I will have to redo this section this spring but I have three very large upright rosemary right in the middle of this bed so I will have to hand weed those when they are dug up and then spray what remains. I had heard from someone that Roundup and Post mixed together will kill anything and someone else said Weed X will work - Roundup hasn't been all that effective and is expensive - so I am going to try and experiment with other herbicides.

Linda

My goodness, if I'd used my tractor 8-12 times in the field, I'd never have time for anything else! 4-5 tillings before planting, then only in between the rows once or twice a season, somehow doesn't add up to 8, much less 12. Although NO rototilling is good for the soil, I believe Roundup is worse. It stays active a whole lot longer than Monsanto says it does.

A sustainable farmer will use any methods he/she picks judiciously. That may very well not include Roundup. There is more than one way to do anything, not just one right way.

Jeanne

Hello everyone........

I have gone into a "no-till" method. This is year number 3 -- so we will see how it does.

In the fall I spread composted chicken manure relatively heavy after the beds are clean -- and then in the spring they are ready to dig in to. I had pretty good results last year --but our drought was bad so nothing was growing!

The chicken manure mix works like this..........I clean the coops and the runs in the early fall and then fill the runs and the coops with about 18" of leaves --- EVERY leaf I can find! The chickens root through the leaves all winter, spring and fall and do what chickens do! Come fall -- I have this incredible leaf mold/chicken manure compost that I spread on dormant gardens.

Works great for me -- no weed seed and tilling can bring up weed seeds that were dormant for decades.

cathy

My husband has some sort of Round-up fetish. Every year I catch him using it after I have specifically banned it because he either used too much or is not selective enough. He always manages to kill some of my flowers. Last year he snuck out to the store, bought some, and sprayed in my 82 foot long perennial border that took me 2 years to establish. I looked at it 2 days later and ALL THE FLOWERS WERE DEAD! He tried to say it was because they needed water!!! Sorry, I had to vent. If I never see another bottle of that dreadful stuff it will be too soon. I told him if I catch him with it this year I'll be adding it to his morning coffee.

Last year there was a meeting of farmers in Michigan. One of the speakers was from the Department of Agriculture; and, there was quite a bit of talk about taking Round Up out of the hands of the backyard gardener. It would only be available to farmers, and fall under the same classification as Atrazene and some other herbicides. Sometimes people don't realize these products are chemicals, and as such there are dangers associated with their use.

Trish

I'm hesitant to use Round Up as well, and am following Clink's no-till method this spring, with 4 year old composted horse manure--hope it works! I have problems with thistles, and found something last summer that worked great--vinegar. It's non selective, so if it gets on a flower, it will kill them as well, but on a hot day, 10% acidic vinegar, mixed with water, and sprayed on thistles kills them dead. I test my soil, and the acidity of the soil hasn't been affected--I just spray it in small amounts, right on the leaves, and no problems so far. It kills all broad-leaved weeds as well, but I haven't tried it on grasses yet.
The only downside is it smells like a salad bar in the garden, until the rain gets rid of the vinegar scent!

Cathy

Cathy (spivey!) -- I used Alldown last year - its an organic herbicide that has vingegar, acetic acid, and garlic. It is premixed---somewhat expensive, but it did work on annual weeds and some perennials - but not the grasses or thistles or chicory. I also had to reapply it a second time, but that combined with the flame weeder, and handweeding did help tremendously!

I tried to time it so that I applied it just prior to planting plugs or just a few days after direct seeding things.

I will use it again. Hope its not as expensive!

Wendy

I try not to use anything besides NOLO bait for leafhoopers. Besides killing weeds, roundup, seems to me anyway, to have a affect on my benefical bugs especially the praying mantis. Plus as you can see the boys love planting in black plastic.
{{gwi:619542}}

I do use what the boys call a "round-up bomb". We use a plastic soda bottle, cut a hole in one side and stick the ends of the bindweed (the worst weed I have) into the bottle, letting the bindweed soak up as much as possible. This usually does the trick.

Bryan

Isn't that a military base in the picture?
Erin