Vigilance

While we grow lots of vegetables and all sorts of fruit and other plants, the primary crop we're growing on our little 5 acre piece of land is grass.  That makes us grass farmers.  It is mostly Bahia mixed with some Bermuda grass.  The cows eat it up and convert the green grass to rich milk that has a thick layer of yellow cream on top. There are other grasses that will pop up and grow and we watch them closely.  Joel Salatin calls the mixture of grasses a "salad bar" for the cows and goats to enjoy as they do exactly as we do at a salad bar - they pick out a little here and a little there.

One thing we keep an eye on in the pasture is invasive weeds.  There are some particularly bad weeds that will crowd out the good grass and take over a pasture in a skinny minute.  We rotational graze and so I'm constantly walking across the pasture moving the animals from one paddock to another every few days.  As I'm walking, I'm careful gazing across the landscape looking for weeds.  When I see them, I walk over and pull them out by the roots and leave them on the ground.  The goal is to get them pulled out before they've gone to seed.

Today I spotted some bitterweed in the pasture.  Under normal conditions cows won't eat this stuff.  I have heard that if they do, it gives the milk a distinct bitter flavor, but we've never experienced that as the cows have plenty of other good grasses to eat. Bitterweed will take over a pasture if it is not controlled early. Below you can see a bitterweed plant growing in an ant mound in the pasture.  

Bitter weed growing in an ant mound

We have an infestation of fire ants and as I looked across the pasture I noticed many ant mounds.  A closer examination showed young bitterweed plants growing out of almost every single ant pile.  I have a theory about that.  I think that I've been successful in rouging out most of the weeds from our pasture; however, the ground holds a vast bank of seeds within it.  When those seeds that might have been dormant for years come into exposure of sunlight and water, they sprout.  My theory is that the ants unearth bitterweed seeds that may have been buried for a long time and bring it to the surface when constructing the mound.  Then those seeds germinate and start the process again.

That's why I'm vigilant in pulling them out before they become a problem.  I lay them on the ground and let the sun dry out the weed and kill it.  It is a never ending job, but one, if properly managed, that yields great results.  All I need to do is look across the road at a field that is overgrown with weeds in comparison to our pasture to know and appreciate the fruits of our labors.  Dealing with a weed infestation early saves time and work, because if you wait until things are overgrown and out of control, much more effort must be expended to get the result you're after.  I make it a point to pull bad weeds almost every day.

Die Bitterweed - Scourge of the Cajun Prairie

I guess this is not only a good pasture management technique, but there's a little parable in there as well.  We all have "little weeds" in our lives that must be dealt with.  Maybe it is a bad attitude, negativity, unforgiveness or perhaps a bad habit.  We must 'pull those out' every day while they are still young.  If not, pretty soon things are out of control and the 'weeds' will have crowded out the 'good crop' you're trying to grow.  Pull all that out the first chance you get to avoid more serious problems down the road.  Keep a watchful eye and be ever so vigilant for Bitter Weeds!