Dang Pigweed

Planted a patch of oats where the pigs were last year.  Got some amazing oats…nearly shoulder high and deep green.  Unfortunately they’re infested with pigweed (lamb’s quarters?) that is equally green and head-high.  Hand-pulling it to salvage the oats.  Leaves a patchy-looking mess but better than giving up entirely, which I was prepared to do until my wife jacked me up.

We have two other patches of oats planted on land that hadn’t been tilled for 25 years.  It’s paler and a tad stunted, but relatively weed-free.  Old-timer across the way says that’ll change next year when the weed seed gets to the tilled ground.  We’re going to try to do some preventative fall planting.

We like the oats because I cut it stem and all and we feed it to the chickens all winter.  They turn it into food, bedding, and eventually, mulch.

Field corn is doing well for the most part.  Our first year of that.  Best patch is the one my wife and daughter weeded while I was gone.  I cultivated nearly all of it before I left on book tour.  Just used a small rear-tine tiller.  Got too rainy to finish, and when I came back after two weeks away, it was remarkable to see the difference between the cultivated and uncultivated corn.


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