Know Thy Weeds: 5 Plant Families Sabotaging Your Garden - Ep. 255

Karin Velez [00:00:00]:
There are times when I leave the weeds in and around my garden. Flowering annuals that are not invasive or noxious, for instance, are allowed to stay around the garden edges to help attract pollinators. These are things like fleabane and sweet clover, and some of them are even beneficial like yarrow. But then there are the weeds that can be serious Trojan horses for our garden. Those mustard family weeds lurking in the back corner that can harbor the same viruses and pests and that will wreak havoc on our broccoli and our kale, or that beautiful datura that is actually a nightshade that will happily spread tobacco mosaic virus to your tomatoes. So today on Just Grow Something, we're reviewing plant identification of five different plant families by their most easily identifiable characteristics and why we would want to remove them from the garden. Whether that's due to pests or or diseases, or both, by the end you will have an idea of what to look out for and when to pull these pesky interlopers before they get a chance to create problems for the plants that you do want producing. Let's dig in.

Karin Velez [00:01:37]:
Okay my gardening friends, before we dig into this week's episode, I have an ask of you. You will notice that this episode has no ads. There are no dynamically inserted advertisements in this episode. So just one sponsor mention and that's it. I use ads to help cover the cost of creating this show. I have done it in one form or another since the very beginning and it has helped to cover the operating expenses. You get to listen for free. And for some of you, that payment for that is in the form of listening to the ads.

Karin Velez [00:02:12]:
Just like radio spots or TV commercials or pop up ads on the Internet right? Today we are skipping that and instead I would love for you to stop what you're doing, pause this episode, and if you're in a space where it's safe to do so, so not while you're driving please. I would love for you to go to lovelandacresfarm.org There is a link in the show description. It's the only link this week in the show description Other than our sponsor. It's also in the email this morning to make it easy for everybody. I would love for you to go to their online shop, scroll down and select donate and donate just $5 to this organization. Scarlett, who runs this very small scale farm in her rural Wisconsin community, has been doing so much for the kids in her community and the adults who care for them. She has created programs for teaching kids with disabilities about hatching chickens and tending goats and growing food. She has donated tons of food to kids who need it the most, especially in the summer when schools are out and there are no school lunches.

Karin Velez [00:03:30]:
Scarlett was an inner city special ed teacher before becoming a farmer, so she understands what happens firsthand in the summer to kids, kids who depend on school lunches. She has also partnered with organizations to donate eggs and soaps made from her goat's milk to those in need. Loveland Acres, like so many farms out there right now, was the recipient of grant money designated for buying produce from local farms to distribute to those in need. But those funds have been cut off now, and that on its own, its own would not be a deal breaker for Scarlett. Obviously, she has managed to operate without those funds runs in previous years. The bigger problem is Scarlett is being harassed and stalked again by local individuals who don't like that Scarlett is farming while black. Scarlett is mixed race and she has faced this harassment before and it stopped for a while due to her going to court number one, but also because the farm got some good attention because Scarlett was on the Kelly Clarkson show last year. But you know, that's the way those things work is you get all of that attention and you get a bunch of support.

Karin Velez [00:04:49]:
But then as the months go on, that support sort of dries up and the eyes now are no longer on the farm and it's not in the spotlight anymore. So now these harassing individuals have decided to pick up their pitchforks again and are causing Scarlett to fear for the safety of the visiting children to her farm. And of course, I'm sure for herself, she's doing all this while trying to farm and feed kids and provide mutual aid for those in her community, and doing all of it while battling severe chronic illnesses, lupus and gastroparesis specifically, which is what took her out of the classroom and landed her on the farm to begin with. She has had local support and she does have a fantastic farm mentor who has been helping her. But unfortunately, this is just a story that I see way too often in small rural communities. And now Scarlett is not only short the funds from the USDA grants. But she has had to temporarily suspend some of those very beneficial programs that she runs so that she can spend time heading to the courthouse to deal with things that she just should not have to be dealing with. There are a ton of ways to support Scarlett and her mission on her site, whether it's donating or buying a product of some kind.

Karin Velez [00:06:12]:
But there are about 2, 000 of you who listen to this podcast every week. And so if we all just stopped and sent her $5, that would literally cover the grant funds that she lost with all of the cuts, and it would put those desperately needed programs that she runs right back on track. And it would also likely alleviate a lot of the stress that she is probably now, which are likely causing even more health issues for her that she does not need. Loveland Acres Farm.org is the website. If you have ever gotten anything of value out of this podcast, or my YouTube or my social media or anything, go right now, make a donation, and then come back and enjoy this ad free episode as my thank you. All right, let's talk Plant families that we grow grow in the garden, and the weeds in that family that want to cause problems for them. There are a few reasons why weeds that are in the same family as the crops that we are growing can be detrimental. The two main ones really are diseases and pests.

Karin Velez [00:07:28]:
So what we'll call these, these weed plants, they are often referred to as alternate hosts, right? Meaning if the insects that are trying to come into our garden don't find their preferred host, like maybe our tomato plant or our eggplant or, you know, our broccoli or our cauliflower, if they can't immediately find these plants, they are going to find an alternate host, something that they can hang out on and can feed on and breed on until they can find the one that they prefer. So how this works is they come in maybe in the early, early spring, they find the weeds along the outer edges of our gardens that are in the same family, and they land on these plants and they hang out in these plants, and they just sort of wait until the stuff that we're growing starts to get to maturity or starts to get big enough for them to come in and predate on them, and then they move from one plant to the other. The same thing goes with the diseases. So these plants are going to attract the same types of diseases that we worry about keeping out of our garden. And the more instances that we have of these diseases in and around our garden areas, the More likely, it is going to continue to move through our garden and cause problems for the crops that we want to grow. So it's pretty important for, for us to remove these alternate hosts and keep them out of the garden as a way of protecting the plants that we want to grow. And the easiest way to identify these plants is usually by looking at their flowers, number one. You are likely going to recognize them if you have ever grown anything in that plant family before, because as a general rule, the structure of flowers within a plant family remains the same from variety to variety.

Karin Velez [00:09:33]:
Okay. So the flower that comes on a wild nightshade is going to look like the flower that you would see on your cultivated eggplant. Okay. And if you look really, really closely, it's the same flower structure as what you're going to see in your tomatoes. They might look a little bit different on the surface, but when you look down at the number of petals and how many stamens, etc. Etc. They're going to be the same. So this is one of the ways, and really one of the easiest ways to identify these weed versions of the plants that we are growing.

Karin Velez [00:10:13]:
The second way is to look at the leaves and the stems of the plant. Now, this can sometimes be a bit more difficult because the leaf shape might be be similar in a lot of ways, but there are plenty of times when the leaf shape is not going to be the same. I mean, if you look at something like ragweed, there are three different varieties of ragweed or types of ragweed that grow in west Central Missouri. And I know this because I have all three of them here on this farm. And each of their leaf shapes and habit are completely different. So if you didn't know that they were three different varieties of ragweed, you would not know that what you were looking at was ragweed just by looking at the leaves. But the stems are very similar. So while this method can be a bit more difficult, it's great to know how to do this if we don't want these plants to have a chance to flower.

Karin Velez [00:11:09]:
So if we're trying to get them before they flower, then it's good to be able to recognize these things before they get to that point and have the opportunity to be able to stretch, to spread. But, you know, the easiest way generally is to identify them by looking at their flower. So let's look at what I would consider to be probably the top five plant families that have weeds that are detrimental, either because they carry the same diseases and pests as the plants that we're trying to grow or because they can spread so rapidly and so easily and choke out some of the plants that we're wanting to grow. So the first thing we're going to start with is the brassicas, right? Brassica prassicacea. This is the mustard family. This is the things that are, you know, cauliflower and broccoli and kale and mustard. All of these things fall into this plant family with the exception of like your broccoli and your cauliflower, because we generally don't allow those to go to seed. If you have ever seen like your, your mustard or your.

Karin Velez [00:12:17]:
What's another one that would you would probably allow to go, I mean kale, kale can, can bolt and go to seed. You know, radishes, radishes are in this family. If you've ever seen a radish bloom, right. All of those flowers look exactly the same. You can tell something is in the mustard family or is in the brassica family by looking at the flowers. The flowers are very specific. So brassica flowers have four petals in a cross shape. And generally they are either a mustard yellow color or they are white.

Karin Velez [00:12:49]:
And the mantra for the flowers in the brassica family is four petals with six stamens, four tall and two short. Now do I think that you're going to remember that? Absolutely not. But it is a very specific way to identify brassicas. So four petals and there are six stamens in the center. Four, four of them are tall and two of them are short on every single brassica you see. So the leaves are usually green. They will often have a mustard odor. So this is another way that you can identify them before they even get to flowering.

Karin Velez [00:13:25]:
After they flower, they are going to have seed pods that are called siloquies. And these are like these skinny little pea like shapes, shells. If you have ever seen radish go to seed, the little seed pods, all of the brassicas have a version of that seed pod. By the way, if you have not eaten radish seed pods when they're fresh and green, oh, they are chef's kiss. They are very, very good. A lot of the time you are going to find these weeds in the mustard family. So usually it's like wild mustard, Shepherd's purse is one, wild radish is one. They're often going to be kind of along the edges of the garden areas or you will find them like in disturbed soil areas along a roadside.

Karin Velez [00:14:14]:
And they can very easily spread on the wind if they are allowed to go to seed. One of the major problems with these brassica weeds is they attract aphids. The cabbage aphid, the turnip aphid, they love to feed on brassicas. Now, that in and of itself wouldn't be that big of a deal because they generally aren't causing that many problems just being themselves. But those aphids can transmit at least 20 different viruses. And so we're talking things like turnip mosaic virus, which our brassicas are very susceptible to. The other pests that, like these brassicas, are whiteflies, and silverleaf whitefly can also transmit viruses. And between weeds and the brassicas that we are trying to grow in our garden, the other thing that we are concerned about with these sort of wild, weedy brassicas is a fungal disease called Alternaria brassica cola.

Karin Velez [00:15:12]:
So it can cause black spot, and the spores from that fungus can travel from the weeds into our crops. So not only do we have the aphids feeding on the mustard weeds and picking up those viruses and then hopping onto our broccoli or our kale and spreading that disease, but the white flies can also carry them on their bodies and deposit them when they feed. So we have this whole host of insects that want to feed on our brassicas, and they are over here in these wild mustards, and they're feeding over here, and then up now they come, and they move over into our broccoli or our kale or our other brassicas. So not only are they causing damage to the plants by their feeding habits, but now they can possibly also spread these diseases. So if you identify wild brassicas, wild mustard of any kind in and around your garden, pull them out, make sure that you are pulling them right at bloom time. As soon as you recognize that flower as being someplace where it's not supposed to be, it's not where you planted it, and maybe even it is where you planted it, because have you ever noticed that you have weeds in your garden that tend to pop up that seem to look exactly like the thing that you are actually trying to grow? And it's very difficult to identify them sometimes. Yeah. So we just have to be very mindful of what we planted and where.

Karin Velez [00:16:42]:
And if these things pop up and we see them bloom, we gotta yank them and get them out of there. We do not want to leave those seed pods to mature. You can also try to, if you have started to have a problem with these aphids and white flies and stuff, you can actually kind of try, you know, some insect netting to reduce, you know, these things from coming in. I always put insect netting over top of my brassicas because not necessarily aphids and whitefly, really, it's the cabbage moths and the cabbage butterflies, which we didn't even mention, those also will come in off of these alternate hosts. In my experience, they are less likely to be in those weed versions for whatever reason. It's like they find the good, they wait until they see the good stuff, or maybe it's the timing, I'm not sure. I haven't had a problem with it in that manner. But I do know that, you know, they, they are going to predate on my brassica.

Karin Velez [00:17:36]:
So I always, always, always make sure that I'm covering the plants that I am intending to grow with insect netting, which also makes it easier to identify the things that aren't supposed to be there because hopefully they are outside of that netting. Because the netting also helps to keep those kind of stray weed seeds from blowing in. So identify early. Oftentimes you're not going to know until these actually bloom. So as soon as they bloom, make sure that you yank them and get them out of the garden. Okay, so the next one is the Solanaceae family. These are the nightshades. Okay, so the nightshades that we generally grow in our garden, things like peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, right.

Karin Velez [00:18:19]:
You have likely seen, I would hope, I hope, if you're growing tomatoes, that you've seen the flowers, but you also, if you've seen your potatoes ever flower, you know what these flowers, flowers look like? Potatoes are kind of a larger version of it, right? It's got those five fused petals that form a star or a sort of tube shape. They are usually purple or white or yellow. So the, probably the, I don't know, strongest version of this that I see out in the gardens is deadly nightshade, Atropa belladonna. You can very, very clearly see the, the, the flowers on these things. And it's very immediately obvious that that is something that is in the nightshade family. It looks exactly like what you would see in terms of an eggplant flower. It is large enough to be able to see those five fused petals. And then if you were to go and look at your tomatoes and you look very closely at those tomato flowers, you're going to see it has the exact eggs, same shape, the same fusion, etc, okay? All of the fruits on all of these plants in this family is actually a berry or it is a capsule.

Karin Velez [00:19:40]:
So the other shape that this flower will form yes. It still has these five fused petals, but it. It forms a tube. And this is like jimson weed. If you ever seen jimson weed, the. The species name is Datura. They are very pretty. They are really cool.

Karin Velez [00:19:59]:
They are actually poisonous when it comes to, like, livestock and such. They're not there. They can't eat detour. They're not supposed to eat datura. Jimson weed is actually often used for medicinal purposes, but it can harbor a lot of the same viruses and insects and fungi that will infiltrate our tomatoes and our eggplant and our other nightshades. Okay. So it's, it's really important. Horsenettle is another weed example in this family.

Karin Velez [00:20:29]:
So these can all harbor tobacco mosaic virus. They can all harbor tomato, yellow leaf curl virus, potato virus. Right. And these things will actually often overwinter in the weeds and in the weed debris. Because let's think about it. If we're not getting these weeds out of the garden area, if they're maybe on the outer edges of maybe a less cultivated area around our gardens or around our yards, and those weeds are allowed to just kind of, you know, be debris over the winter time, if they had any of these viruses, they can overwinter in those weeds. And then we're cleaning out our garden area. Right.

Karin Velez [00:21:14]:
We're pulling out the plants from our gardens that are all in these plant families. But if we leave the weeds, then they can infect the crops that we plant the next season through the insect vectors. So again, the aphids and the white flies, those two are the main culprits that will spread these viruses from. From those weeds into the crops that we want to keep. And then the weeds can also host fungi and that are root fungus. And so it's a root rot that can also be spread. And then hornworms also. Go figure, you know, those giant green worms that we don't want in our tomatoes.

Karin Velez [00:21:57]:
Yeah. They can also be hosted in these weeds. So once again, the aphids can feed on the jimson weed or whatever weed is out there and pick up the viruses and move them to your tomatoes. And those weeds can retain those viruses through the winter and reintroduce them in the spring. So you want to remove the entire plant roots and all. If you spot these guys, again, you're looking for the flowers. It is difficult. I will say.

Karin Velez [00:22:26]:
The one that is super, super easy to identify even before it gets its flowers is that deadly nightshade. Why? Because it will bite you if you go to grab it. And you. Because you recognize it as a weed, they have the sharpest thorns all over them. They're on the stem, they're on the leaves. It goes all the way down to the soil line. You go to pull those suckers out, and you got to get down underneath, like under the soil line in order to be able to pull them out. So before they even flower, you will know when you are dealing with Atropa belladonna.

Karin Velez [00:23:03]:
Okay. But the rest of them, sometimes you may not be able to recognize until they actually get those flowers on them. The, the jimson weed is a little bit easier to detect because its leaves are very toothed and they have these large funnel shaped flowers which turns into a very spiky seed capsule. The flowers are actually very pretty. They are white and purple. And that, that seed capsule is really, really interesting. But I tell you, there are a ton of seeds in that capsule. So even if you are going to use jimson weed medicinally and you have to let it flower, you're using the leaves.

Karin Velez [00:23:47]:
Make sure that you remove these plants before they produce that seed or you will have an infestation of them. Okay? And if you are allowing them to grow, please make sure that you are doing it someplace that is further away from your garden area. And make sure when you remove any of these, you're removing the entire plant, roots and all. And you likely want to wear gloves. A lot of these plants can be toxic. In this family, there's a reason they call it deadly nightshade, right. Even though it's a little bit of a misnomer. But, you know, there, there's a reason these things are, are, you know, considered to be dangerous. You know why belladonna, you know, is so well known as being a deadly poison or whatever. They are toxic. So make sure you are wearing gloves, but do whatever you can to get these alternate weeds or these alternate species in the nightshade family out of the garden area so they don't infect your good nightshades.

Karin Velez [00:25:47]:
Now these next three families are mainly florals that compete with the plants in our gardens that we're growing for show. But there are some vegetable species that are affected by these. They can also, there are some in here too that can be very, very aggressive self seeders and spreaders. So not only do they harbor pests and diseases of some of the flowers and the grains that we may like to grow around our garden and but they can very quickly take over if they are left to their own devices. The first one is the Asteraceae family. This is the daisy family. These are going to be obvious in terms of their flowers. They have those composite flower heads. So like a dandelion or a daisy or a thistle, it's a bunch of like tiny little flowers that make the bigger flower. And the leaves on these are often very lobed or rough. So if you think like Canada thistle or mugwort and the, the what the leaves look like of those, that is one of the ways that you can identify this plant family prior to it actually developing its flower heads. What are the problems with these guys? Because, I mean, I don't know, I like daisies.

Karin Velez [00:26:53]:
I even like the look of dandelions. I like sunflowers. Right? Wild sunflowers. What is the harm in letting these guys just flower and do their thing? Well, leaf miners and flea beetles, number one, they will move between the weed species and the crops, like our lettuce or our sunflowers. And another fungi, the rust fungi, can also move between these weed species and these crops. So the weeds again serve as alternate hosts. Thistles are especially notorious for this. So even though you might like the look of them, these insects and these diseases can jump from the weed to the crop.

Karin Velez [00:27:36]:
The rust spores will actually travel on the wind and so it's super easy for that to spread to your other plants. If you have not had a problem with leaf miners or flea beetles and you want to let the wild sunflowers and the wild daisies and the wild dandelions do their thing, then that's entirely up to you. I would never say to allow certain thistles to go because, number one, in some areas they are considered a noxious weed and they are required by law to be removed. That's what it's like here for thistles, specific types of thistles. But also, again, thistles are usually very spiky and spiny, so be careful working in and around them. These really aren't very easily identified before, before they flower, unless you can really recognize what those leaves look like. So oftentimes you kind of have to wait until those flowers pop out. But as soon as you identify them, then you need to get them out of there before those flower seeds produce the seeds, because then they are going to spread like crazy.

Karin Velez [00:28:41]:
But also, you don't want those rust spores to be able to travel on the wind and get over to your crops that you, that you're trying to grow. The next one is the Polygonaceae family. This is knotweed, or the buckwheat family. These are very easy to identify by their hollow stems and their swollen nodes. So if. Now, remember, when we're talking about nodes, this is the leaf node. This is where the leaves join the stem. We have the node and we have the internode, which is the space between those joats.

Karin Velez [00:29:16]:
The nodes on anything that's in this buckwheat family are swollen. They look like they have joints. And you will be able, once you recognize this and you've seen this, you will very easily be able to recognize them again. You can just go look up a picture of buckwheat, and anything that is in that family is going to have that same sort of structure. The leaves have a sheath on them. It's called an oa, and that is right there around the stem. So it has that little sheath. And then they all have these tiny, clustered like greenish white flowers.

Karin Velez [00:29:50]:
Again, if you go and look up buckwheat, you will see what the flowers look like. Anything in that family is going to have that same thing. Our concern here is the knotweed, because Japanese knotweed will choke a garden out faster than you can believe. And it also will host some root pathogens as well. There aren't any, like, direct insect pests that I'm aware of that go from, you know, the, the knotweed to anything that's in the buckwheat family that you're trying to grow in your garden. Like we grow buckwheat as a cover crop in the summertime because it grows so very quickly. Well, the problem with that really rapid growth is that knotweed also grows, grows that quickly and it will do exactly what it sounds like. It knots around the plants and just chokes out a garden.

Karin Velez [00:30:41]:
So there are no direct insect pests, but it is a very, very aggressive spreader. So it will absolutely compromise the health of your plants in your garden. It not only chokes from up top, but it spreads through underground rhizomes. And those rhizomes can also carry disease. So we need to make sure when we are removing these, so recognize the nodes and the sheath at the leaf stem junction. We need to dig really deep and remove all of the root fragments of these because any roots left in the soil will sprout again. This, the, the knotweed is very, very persistent. So if you discover that you have knotweed in your garden, you will likely need to monitor it like throughout the entire growing season to make sure that you continue to remove it all so that it doesn't come back again.

Karin Velez [00:31:33]:
And then finally, we have the amaranthacea family. This is the amaranth family, otherwise known as pigweed. So if you know what amaranth is, right, if you've ever even grown it. Amaranth is often grown for the young leaves, but it's also grown for the seeds. Is like a grain. They have very, very dense flower spikes. They are small, they are greenish or reddish colored. The leaves are very simple.

Karin Velez [00:31:59]:
They're sometimes slightly fleshy. They are alternate of each other on that stem. The most common weeds that are in this family are pigweed, which has a bunch of different varieties. There's like rough pigweed, there's smooth pigweed. Lamb's quarters is also in this plant family. If you've ever seen lamb's quarters in your garden, I know a lot of people will eat lamb's quarters. It is a nutritious spring green, but as it pops up and it starts to develop those seeds, it can spread like crazy. Waterhemp Same thing.

Karin Velez [00:32:31]:
It is also in this family. The problem with these guys is again, those dense flower spikes that we like and we want on the amaranth that we're growing as a crop are also how a lot of these will spread. Pigweed especially and, and it's very difficult sometimes to distinguish between the two. And you will see, you know, later on in the season if it has come up and those, those seeds start to dry and then they just drop everywhere. The problem with these weeds are the fact that they will host leaf spot and mosaic viruses, including some of those Aphid transmitted types that can jump to. To our spinach or our shard or our beets. So these weeds can spread the pathogens, the pollen can spread the pathogens, the insects can spread the pathogens between the weeds and the crops that we are trying to grow. Those very fine seeds can also blow into the garden and then start sprouting the seeds.

Karin Velez [00:33:35]:
You know, sprouting the weeds from within the garden. They may stay in the soil until the following year, and then they're coming up. The insects can pick up the viruses from the weeds that inoculate our veggies with it. We do not want that. So this is one that you definitely need to catch before flowering, if you can recognize them or immediately upon flowering. And one of the ways that you can control these, though, is as you see them come up sometimes they're going to come up in these very sort of dense groves. This is one where they are an annual. So they're not reproducing by rhizomes or anything else under the soil.

Karin Velez [00:34:11]:
So it is something that you can cover to make sure that the weeds are controlled. So if you have a tarp or something and you have an infestation of these types of weeds, you can cover it with the tarp to basically choke those out, keep them from getting any of the sun. That's also going to keep them from flowering. And hopefully this will clear your garden out of those. But if you have individual ones here and there, then it just hand pulling is fine. But make sure that, number one, you are pulling them before you flower. And then two, if you see that they have any type of a virus or anything, then make sure that you do not compost any infected plant material. The lesson in all of this, and these were only 5 of the plant families that I think probably have a lot of the problem.

Karin Velez [00:34:56]:
There are others that maybe not necessarily, you know, are that we're growing anything that's in the same plant family that's in the garden. And. But that are, you know, definitely problems. I didn't cover those because there are too many. But these are the ones that I think you probably are mainly going to be worried about that look very similar to some of the things that we grow in the garden. So your most reliable family clue is that flower shape. But if you can teach yourself sort of the cues of what to look for in the stem or the leaf pattern, but then also specifically the flower shape, if you see them pop up, you'll be able to recognize them very quickly and be able to pull them early, preferably with the roots intact, because you never know whether or not it's one of those ones that can reproduce very easily from the roots. And then, of course, you want to protect the crops that you are growing that you want to keep, either by using barriers or insect netting, but also in keeping your tools clean so that we're not transmitting things from one to the other, especially when we're using tools to clear out the weeds.

Karin Velez [00:35:57]:
We don't want to use those same tools on the plants that we're trying to keep before we have cleaned them. That's it for today. Please go to Loveland Acres farm.org and donate just $5 or more to Scarlet and the work that she is doing up there in Wisconsin. Until next time, my gardening friends. Keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk again soon.