Orchard Ground Covers
Comments on the Heritage and Rare Fruit Network's Facebook page:
"I have a question for anyone who has a small (or large) orchard.
How do you keep down the grass?"
Neville Burley
Geese; they work wonders, they drive off snakes too. I call them Christmas and dinner.
Sallyann Leeson
Lots of mulch and a lawn mower!!!!
Alexandra Westlund
I don't at the moment but the owner of my place told me the chickens would do it in the past. It would be nice if I was in an area where I could grow peanuts or sweet potato under the trees but no. I don't think ..I do mulch around my trees with old chook bedding though.
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
We ended up with grass on our entire 24 acre orchard in the 1960s & shared a tractor drawn 3 disc mower, with an extendable disc with a bicycle wheel & tire cover to protect the tree trunks & we ended up with so much better surface soil than when it had all been ploughed! The trees were able to send out near surface feeder roots many feet from the trees, which would previously been cut off!
Sallyann Leeson
Chooks do a pretty good job and clean up the bugs..
Gavin Mayberry-Long
I have no authority on this at all, but, for a small area im sure ive read that guinea pigs can keep the grass down. But obviously only for a small area etc.
Alexandra Westlund
Depends how many you have!!
Gavin Mayberry-Long Oh my, i imagine roaming flocks of them swarming around trees eating grass :p6 hrs ·
Ann Stevens
We are sheet mulching (small orchard) layers of cardboard and chipped tree bark. Kris recommends wetting the cardboard and putting down a layer of manure underneath first.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
These are all great suggestions, thanks to everyone who replied. We are still debating which solution to try. Has anyone had any experience with 'Orchard Cover Crops' as sold by Green Harvest? https://www.greenharvest.com.au
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
We ended up with a fair amount of clover in our orchard! Dad sowed clover & rye grass in the first sections he converted, but after that it spread & latter areas he just leveled it out & mowed whatever came up & it's amazing how quickly it became permanent mixed pasture with various grasses, docks, plantain, dandelions & whatever, but they all grow, build up the soil & mulch when mowed!
Alexandra Westlund
That's pretty much what I have
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
Towards the end, we left in 1971, Dad was using Diquat & Paraquat to kill the growth along the tree line, but aside from the chemicals, I believe it was a mistake, because then we got annual weeds & grasses, like Barnyard Grass, there instead! Like when the council sprays the side of the road to kill the grass & Capeweed etc comes up instead!
Ben Waite
I'm not opposed to a bit of round-up to get rid of grass and perennial weeds, but I then try and mulch, preferably with newspaper as an underlay. I'm a fan of wood chips / bark, because the chooks mostly leave it alone. I always put some manure out under woodchips, but I think the impact of nitrogen draw down is massively overstated, so long as it is aged a bit. A common problem for fruit trees is too much nitrogen, so I tend to think tying it up temporarily in the wood chips (it gets released over time again anyway) is a good thing. After a couple of applications of wood mulch you will have loads of worms and a much improved soil :) Around my fruit trees I grow a few low, ground cover herbs like achillea, catmint, thyme, hyssop, etc, though this is still a bit patchy :) The idea is that each row will eventually be more like a cottage garden than an orchard... That might impact productivity a little, but I have a couple of hundred trees and there are 2 of us. In between fruit tree rows I just mow. In the veg garden where the chooks can't go, I try and use Lucerne when I can get it. I've worded up the local stockfeed, so they let me know when there is rain damaged stuff around I can get cheap.
Alexandra Westlund
That sounds lovely, Ben! I might do the same with the herbs
Ben Waite
Sounds lovely, yes, but you are getting the artistic vision, rather than the patchy reality ;) Still very much a work in progress... I blame the chickens... I recommend only using plants that die back, or you can hit with the whipper snipper, so it is easy to apply more mulch...
SirSpeedy Ward
A combination of vege patches amongst the trees
and a good sharp scythe blade for the grass patches
SirSpeedy Ward
I also encourage a good mix of perennial herbs/ choice edible weeds to naturalise in the orchard for ready supply of potherbs and greens for family and livestock.
More diversity for resilience and nutrient cycling.
But also keep focus on the process and the evolution of the system rather than an unrealistic static end point.
It's never the same year to year, it's all ok as long as the soil keeps improving.
Susana Bateson
I keep my chooks under fruit trees. Geese mow grass well.
Chrissy Dumble
due to a knee injury my very small orchard was over run with weeds and couch grass I tried the chooks did not work but put 6 ducks in there I pulled out the tall weeds the ducks did the rest I can see BARE DIRT
Ben Waite
The geese do OK when I'm home all the time but our fences aren't predator proof enough for them to live in the orchard. Working on it slowly...
David Thompson
We run geese in our orchard and sheep when the trees are dormant. Spring grass growth out paces anything they can eat though, esp when the geese have goslings to worry about in spring.
Mary Ward
Ride on mower with a mulching kit fitted
Tammy Herne
Ducks or geese
Neil Barraclough
I'll make the suggestion that grasses are bad companions for fruit trees but with the exception of kikuyu not excessively bad. Broad leaf plants not in the solanaceae (tomato) family good companions and much less fire promoting than many grass's. Nancy Morgan spoke at our grafting day and said strawberries were very bad for fruit trees, what are the observations? How are the different critters (ducks, geese, chooks, guinea pigs) influencing the broad leaf to grass ratio?
Neville Burley
Our geese tend to leave broad leaf stuff alone, happily eating the kikuyu down. Wonder if Cecilia Dart-Thornton replaced the lawn with Lucerne, she gets many natural benefits and the cut stuff can be taken away and stored for stock for later
Molly Galea
The kids' pet Guinea pigs in our orchard were good, in a little moveable tractor. Then they died. Diggers say oca is a good root crop for orchards in temperate zones (alternative to subtropical option peanuts - I haven't tried it)
Sharn Lucas
Oh bugger Neil I'd not heard that about strawbs! I just moved a whole heap to under the fruit trees - I was going with the guild premise of runners/clumpers/miners, etc. Why are strawberries bad?
Ben Waite
I hadn't thought of using oca, since it's a little weedy, but that isn't a problem in the orchard I suppose. They are tasty, like a lemony potato, and you can eat the leaves too. But they won't fix nitrogen like peanuts... licorice is a good low growing nitrogen fixer, that is pretty and useful. I have a few apios americana (potato bean) but I haven't trialled it in the orchard yet.
Sharn Lucas
Our little orchard is being converted to a food forest, so sheet mulching out mostly medic and grass that is currently growing and replacing with all manner of species, including sage, daffodils, thyme, mint, calendula, strawberries, coriander, dill, onions, chives, garlic, nasturtium...
Sharn Lucas
Yarrow, tansy, clover, oregano.....I'm sure there is more, but I have trouble remembering them all LOL
Sharn Lucas
Oh comfrey of course
Alexandra Westlund
Liquorice! Yum.
Ben Waite
Hyssop and agastache I love. I have a chicory with purple-red stems and blue flowers. Onions and other alliums. Carrits and silver beat left to flower are structural and self seed readily. Savoury and bergamot are some of my favourite herbs and are attractive and delicious, as well as bringing in insects. There are all kinds of things that work. Seems like we need a list, or even to exchange companion plants at grafting days
Alexandra Westlund
Oh man, I'm making a big list here. Bergamot I could many my own Earl Grey!
Countess Grey. Haha
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Sorry to say there are 2 different bergamots, Alexandra Westlund The pretty, flowering, bee attracting low-growing plant is not the plant used to make Earl Grey tea, though maybe you could make Countess Alexandra tea with it... The bergamot used in the tea is a citrus fruit.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Citrus bergamia = the bergamot orange (we have one growing) and Monarda didyma = bergamot herb.
Sir Speedy Ward
I have self seeded parsnip, carrots, parsley, chicory, sculpit (Silene vulgaris) , salsify, sand rocket fennel.
Then I've planted dwarf comfrey (S.grandiflorum) tansy, yarrow, wooly yarrow, Teucrium scorodonia, wallflowers, strawberries (Fragaria moscata and F.vesca), liquorice running everywhere.
Vetiver grass as low windbreak/ hedge and some sort of ryegrass , Eragrostis tef, and various millets.
Plenty others too numerous to mention.
"I have a question for anyone who has a small (or large) orchard.
How do you keep down the grass?"
Neville Burley
Geese; they work wonders, they drive off snakes too. I call them Christmas and dinner.
Sallyann Leeson
Lots of mulch and a lawn mower!!!!
Alexandra Westlund
I don't at the moment but the owner of my place told me the chickens would do it in the past. It would be nice if I was in an area where I could grow peanuts or sweet potato under the trees but no. I don't think ..I do mulch around my trees with old chook bedding though.
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
We ended up with grass on our entire 24 acre orchard in the 1960s & shared a tractor drawn 3 disc mower, with an extendable disc with a bicycle wheel & tire cover to protect the tree trunks & we ended up with so much better surface soil than when it had all been ploughed! The trees were able to send out near surface feeder roots many feet from the trees, which would previously been cut off!
Sallyann Leeson
Chooks do a pretty good job and clean up the bugs..
Gavin Mayberry-Long
I have no authority on this at all, but, for a small area im sure ive read that guinea pigs can keep the grass down. But obviously only for a small area etc.
Alexandra Westlund
Depends how many you have!!
Gavin Mayberry-Long Oh my, i imagine roaming flocks of them swarming around trees eating grass :p6 hrs ·
Ann Stevens
We are sheet mulching (small orchard) layers of cardboard and chipped tree bark. Kris recommends wetting the cardboard and putting down a layer of manure underneath first.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
These are all great suggestions, thanks to everyone who replied. We are still debating which solution to try. Has anyone had any experience with 'Orchard Cover Crops' as sold by Green Harvest? https://www.greenharvest.com.au
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
We ended up with a fair amount of clover in our orchard! Dad sowed clover & rye grass in the first sections he converted, but after that it spread & latter areas he just leveled it out & mowed whatever came up & it's amazing how quickly it became permanent mixed pasture with various grasses, docks, plantain, dandelions & whatever, but they all grow, build up the soil & mulch when mowed!
Alexandra Westlund
That's pretty much what I have
Dennis Malcolm Gedye
Towards the end, we left in 1971, Dad was using Diquat & Paraquat to kill the growth along the tree line, but aside from the chemicals, I believe it was a mistake, because then we got annual weeds & grasses, like Barnyard Grass, there instead! Like when the council sprays the side of the road to kill the grass & Capeweed etc comes up instead!
Ben Waite
I'm not opposed to a bit of round-up to get rid of grass and perennial weeds, but I then try and mulch, preferably with newspaper as an underlay. I'm a fan of wood chips / bark, because the chooks mostly leave it alone. I always put some manure out under woodchips, but I think the impact of nitrogen draw down is massively overstated, so long as it is aged a bit. A common problem for fruit trees is too much nitrogen, so I tend to think tying it up temporarily in the wood chips (it gets released over time again anyway) is a good thing. After a couple of applications of wood mulch you will have loads of worms and a much improved soil :) Around my fruit trees I grow a few low, ground cover herbs like achillea, catmint, thyme, hyssop, etc, though this is still a bit patchy :) The idea is that each row will eventually be more like a cottage garden than an orchard... That might impact productivity a little, but I have a couple of hundred trees and there are 2 of us. In between fruit tree rows I just mow. In the veg garden where the chooks can't go, I try and use Lucerne when I can get it. I've worded up the local stockfeed, so they let me know when there is rain damaged stuff around I can get cheap.
Alexandra Westlund
That sounds lovely, Ben! I might do the same with the herbs
Ben Waite
Sounds lovely, yes, but you are getting the artistic vision, rather than the patchy reality ;) Still very much a work in progress... I blame the chickens... I recommend only using plants that die back, or you can hit with the whipper snipper, so it is easy to apply more mulch...
SirSpeedy Ward
A combination of vege patches amongst the trees
and a good sharp scythe blade for the grass patches
SirSpeedy Ward
I also encourage a good mix of perennial herbs/ choice edible weeds to naturalise in the orchard for ready supply of potherbs and greens for family and livestock.
More diversity for resilience and nutrient cycling.
But also keep focus on the process and the evolution of the system rather than an unrealistic static end point.
It's never the same year to year, it's all ok as long as the soil keeps improving.
Susana Bateson
I keep my chooks under fruit trees. Geese mow grass well.
Chrissy Dumble
due to a knee injury my very small orchard was over run with weeds and couch grass I tried the chooks did not work but put 6 ducks in there I pulled out the tall weeds the ducks did the rest I can see BARE DIRT
Ben Waite
The geese do OK when I'm home all the time but our fences aren't predator proof enough for them to live in the orchard. Working on it slowly...
David Thompson
We run geese in our orchard and sheep when the trees are dormant. Spring grass growth out paces anything they can eat though, esp when the geese have goslings to worry about in spring.
Mary Ward
Ride on mower with a mulching kit fitted
Tammy Herne
Ducks or geese
Neil Barraclough
I'll make the suggestion that grasses are bad companions for fruit trees but with the exception of kikuyu not excessively bad. Broad leaf plants not in the solanaceae (tomato) family good companions and much less fire promoting than many grass's. Nancy Morgan spoke at our grafting day and said strawberries were very bad for fruit trees, what are the observations? How are the different critters (ducks, geese, chooks, guinea pigs) influencing the broad leaf to grass ratio?
Neville Burley
Our geese tend to leave broad leaf stuff alone, happily eating the kikuyu down. Wonder if Cecilia Dart-Thornton replaced the lawn with Lucerne, she gets many natural benefits and the cut stuff can be taken away and stored for stock for later
Molly Galea
The kids' pet Guinea pigs in our orchard were good, in a little moveable tractor. Then they died. Diggers say oca is a good root crop for orchards in temperate zones (alternative to subtropical option peanuts - I haven't tried it)
Sharn Lucas
Oh bugger Neil I'd not heard that about strawbs! I just moved a whole heap to under the fruit trees - I was going with the guild premise of runners/clumpers/miners, etc. Why are strawberries bad?
Ben Waite
I hadn't thought of using oca, since it's a little weedy, but that isn't a problem in the orchard I suppose. They are tasty, like a lemony potato, and you can eat the leaves too. But they won't fix nitrogen like peanuts... licorice is a good low growing nitrogen fixer, that is pretty and useful. I have a few apios americana (potato bean) but I haven't trialled it in the orchard yet.
Sharn Lucas
Our little orchard is being converted to a food forest, so sheet mulching out mostly medic and grass that is currently growing and replacing with all manner of species, including sage, daffodils, thyme, mint, calendula, strawberries, coriander, dill, onions, chives, garlic, nasturtium...
Sharn Lucas
Yarrow, tansy, clover, oregano.....I'm sure there is more, but I have trouble remembering them all LOL
Sharn Lucas
Oh comfrey of course
Alexandra Westlund
Liquorice! Yum.
Ben Waite
Hyssop and agastache I love. I have a chicory with purple-red stems and blue flowers. Onions and other alliums. Carrits and silver beat left to flower are structural and self seed readily. Savoury and bergamot are some of my favourite herbs and are attractive and delicious, as well as bringing in insects. There are all kinds of things that work. Seems like we need a list, or even to exchange companion plants at grafting days
Alexandra Westlund
Oh man, I'm making a big list here. Bergamot I could many my own Earl Grey!
Countess Grey. Haha
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Sorry to say there are 2 different bergamots, Alexandra Westlund The pretty, flowering, bee attracting low-growing plant is not the plant used to make Earl Grey tea, though maybe you could make Countess Alexandra tea with it... The bergamot used in the tea is a citrus fruit.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Citrus bergamia = the bergamot orange (we have one growing) and Monarda didyma = bergamot herb.
Sir Speedy Ward
I have self seeded parsnip, carrots, parsley, chicory, sculpit (Silene vulgaris) , salsify, sand rocket fennel.
Then I've planted dwarf comfrey (S.grandiflorum) tansy, yarrow, wooly yarrow, Teucrium scorodonia, wallflowers, strawberries (Fragaria moscata and F.vesca), liquorice running everywhere.
Vetiver grass as low windbreak/ hedge and some sort of ryegrass , Eragrostis tef, and various millets.
Plenty others too numerous to mention.