that bastard, the garden progress

THAT BASTARD
its the rapistrum rugosum
not some person thats made me mad

its known as the bastard cabbage
if youve got it in your yard or on your land you know
why its called
the bastard cabbage











its an invasive species from europe and north africa
sometimes its eaten there like you would cabbage
theres so much around here we could feed the homeless
and starving in the us for a year on whats available here
now in texas

why is it bad
its an aggressive plant that grows first low to the ground and
shades native grasses and native wildflowers so they can
not sprout and grow
then the bastard will grow as high as 5 ft and will shade
everything else out
on my property when i pull it up  if it gets too high there
is absolutely bare ground underneath the plant

because of the drought here there is a lot of grass that has died
and a lot of bare ground is present
the bastard just takes over the area and no wildflowers will grow
that includes our beloved blue bonnets

some one was riding with me and asked wow thats a field of
pretty yellow plants
those are bastards
dont let any get on your property

my neighbor plowed up his native grass and planted oats and
sunflower seeds
that native grass is all gone and
he has a field of bastard cabbage now with no wildflowers

the seeds drift onto my property
thanks buddy

heres how i manage it
i pull the whole plant up
if you mow it down it grows right back
i put the plant in my chicken coop compost pile and
my girls scratch eat the seeds and eventually destroys the
whole plant
ive managed to keep it under control on my 10 acres of land
this way

you should pull it up and bag it and send it to the land field
its one of the few plants other than nut grass that i recommend
you do that to
each plant makes lots of seeds so if it lays around somewhere
they can be blown onto any bare ground on your property

that bastard
lets try to get it under control or
it could greatly reduce our wildflowers in this state

pull it up and bag it

KEYHOLE SQUARE FOOT GARDEN PROGRESS
here is an update on the keyhole square foot garden my wife she
and i put in at the habitat house i am working on

in review we used all recycled stuff from my property that i had
left over from various projects
we dug a 4 ft square down 6-12 inches
she has good soil at her house not the caliche stuff we have at
the country n
then we put it a central 4 ft composter that is 1 ft in diameter
and is buried 1 ft into the ground so that 3 ft is sticking up
out of the soil

we then added 1-11/2 ft of good hill country garden soil from
the natural gardener
we filled the composter up with layers of chicken compost, regular
compost, leaves, newspapers
then we planted the garden
the garden is sectioned off in 1 ft squares to assist in planting

she has planted arugula beans sweet banana pepper basil
malibar spinach muliplying onions leeks sweet 100 tomato
early girl tomato oregano jalapeno pepper, bell pepper
and egg plant
nice starter garden

she just adds water to the top of the composter and if needed
waters each plant individually
she also adds compost materials as it composts down

you should try it youll like it and feel good about your green thumb

the organicgreen doctor