Let's talk about my "friends" the pasture weeds, that I fight every year.
Field Pennycress
It grows EVERYWHERE I till, so I think it came with the property. In the Spring, like right now, I can pull it out by the roots before it goes to seed. After it goes to seed I burn it. I have a friend, lives Now (used to be my neighbor) in a small town and she thinks it's great and that it's edible. Fair enough. SHE can harvest as many as she likes. I try to pull it/keep it mowed down and replace it with something else.
Dandelions
I don't consider them a weed. In my north pasture, which the original horses that I brought here seeded into pasture grass, since it had been cultivated in corn until we moved in. In 2012 we were in the middle of a drought and about 1/3 of the north pasture got overgrazed. The bare spots are finally starting to fill in. DH has mowed there twice. It looked like I was cultivating dandelions, but knocking their seeds down means that they will fill in. My horses really enjoy tender dandelion leaves, so I leave them.
Burdock
Burdock is a 2 year crop, and it is said that monks grew it for the medicinal purpose of their leaves. I feel comfortable pulling the leaves out, since they don't damage your skin. The roots can go up to 2 ft deep, and 2nd year plants are impossible to pull out until they go to seed, and even then, not until the next year
I am, as you all know, pulling out, burning and poisoning burdock on my property with D2-4, but I have to be smart about it, since my biggest burdock problem is now in the South Pasture, and my horses do/will be grazing there. What I started this year, it to attack the 2nd year plants by mowing, and I have been taking my giant wheelbarrow after I clean a stall, spray an area, then dump fresh manure and urine soaked pine shavings and sometimes, straw, right on top. My horses will NOT want to eat there. There was an area where I dumped from the winter some 4 years ago and this year there was a crop of baby burdock, 3 inch deep roots. I tilled it, and will continue to till it all of this year.
I still have limbs to clean up from last year. I use my outside "1 hour rule" bc it is a Big job. I can clean up between 2-3 of my 25 ft tall pine trees at a time, then quit. I burned a wheelbarrow full yesterday. Would have done more, but I get a 5 or 6AM dog wake up call (and Pyg medicine alarm on my phone, with a happy little "Pyg" tune,) and this week I have to give Pyg a 10PM medicine dose. Kinda tired. After she gets her surgery staples out next week, I might be able to get up early and take a short afternoon nap.
NOTE: DON'T mistake burdock for rhubarb, which has a reddish, sometimes whitish stem and the leaves are shorter and much curlier.
en.wikipedia.org
Curly Dock
My hayman harvests from many different fields. Somehow he has sold me a batch with curly dock. FORTUNATELY, I can feed it exclusively in their stalls.
EDIT: My horses refuse to eat curly dock seeds. I collect the reddish seeds, which always form on a woody stem, and throw them in the trash. I have had to use my reciprocating saw to cut them down to size in the past, no fun, but I think I will have fewer this year bc they aren't going out to be fertilized by used bedding.
Horse nettle
Illinois WILDflower, my foot!!! I am lucky bc I have very little of this. If you don't wear leather gloves these will rip out your skin when you pull. The roots aren't deep, and the "fruit" looks like orange holly fruit. I collect it in a wheelbarrow, where I find it, and take it right to my fire pit to be burned.
Thistles
We all have these in our lawn, (unless your name is
@ninnymary , who probably has the most manicured garden here!!) If you take a shovel, dig down 4 inches, you can pop them out and they don't generally come back. After it dries out I fill in the hole with grass clippings, preferably those with seeds.
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Came in last week.
