creeping charlie has taken over much of my lawn. most people hate it for its invasiveness but ive let it be as the bees love it and its ornamental. its also growing in a shaded area under my pines where most grass struggles. i like the smell of it when i mow it as well. its in the mint family. no surprise there. if it starts to go where i dont want it a little herbicde keeps it out.
4 Likes
just keep a narrow path for walking short. let the rest grow up.
4 Likes
Creeping charlie has an incredibly pleasant scent IMO as well. I often pull back the shallow rooted creeping charlie from wood chip mulch (around tree trunks) and I like the smell it leaves on my hands.
1 Like
We use it as a herbal remedy for persistent dry coughs (like long covid cough).
2 Likes
Like the pups and red clover pictured. I believe clover in general is a nitrogen fixation. Our chickens are rotated every other year between two gardens. I"ve been looking for a ground cover for the garden during the off year. Clover never crossed my mind, but would be great for ground cover and chickens.
Thanks for posting the picture 
3 Likes
Best to seed it in the fall or frost seed it in late winter. Search for deer food plots and you will find lots of information.
im letting some of my grasses get tall then mowing them high…going to repeat that a few times with the theory that the taller the grass is the deeper the roots… 50 percent looks like a good goal.
1 Like
Yeah I planted it to build some soil and let the chickens enjoy, idk if you can tell but I had to cage every plant because they preferred them to the clover haha but they eat it a good bit when that’s their option
1 Like
i have a neighbor down the road that has guineas that dont fly… im guessing that they clipped the wings? Their hens are always working the yard and gardens hard… i did have another neighbor that had guineas years ago and those flew up into trees and seemed scared of everything… im super interested in the flightless ones… but i would have to start over with my dogs… so probably not going to happen.
2 Likes
My experice guineas are good for eating all kinds of bugs, better than turkeys. But I believe the best for tick control is opossums or possums as some people call then. I dont encourage opossums to move in but i’m happy to have them around.
2 Likes
I look at the longer grass roots as more competition for tree roots moisture and nutrients am I wrong?
2 Likes
That is correct. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though. I believe @alan intentionally lets the grass in the orchards he manages get tall as harvest approaches so that the trees are a bit water deprived, resulting in fruit with more “concentration” as the wine people call it.
2 Likes
as pointed out earlier taller grass keeps the air near the ground much much cooler and can decrease loss due to evaporation so it isn’t anything close to that simple
1 Like
If you are interested in mowing less under your orchard, keep in mind that the consequences of competition from tall grass is much greater in spring than summer, plus, if you apply spring insecticides it is good to keep grass and weeds very low at that time in order to stop flowering weeds under or near the trees you spray.
Even bug pressure from dicots is going to be greatest in spring and keeping grass very low then reduces the pressure.
If you just let the weeds and grass grow from July until one more close cut in late Sept-Oct (to give predators a good chance at taking out voles, for one thing) you should get good results, even with trees that need to get bigger. Of course they will grow more if you keep cutting the grass under the trees throughout the growing season, but bang for buck, spring mowing will pay out much more significantly than mowing only in summer.
Another thing, if you let grass grow tall under big apple trees the drops won’t get bruised too much except when they land on each other- so you might want to let the grass grow in late summer until harvest as well.
5 Likes
Possums, ticks, not so much
Outdoor Illinois Journal: Debunking the Myth: Opossums Don’t Eat Ticks (wildlifeillinois.org)
6 Likes
the native Americans knew very well what worked best for knocking back tick populations…controlled burns. not much else does it. The lack of controlled burns in the East is the main reason tick populations are so out of control
4 Likes
according to the innerwebs…they are blaming it on ‘climate change’.
However i read another interesting theory about acorns…that due to the above…that there was an abundance of acorns…which led to abundance of mice and vermin (squirrels etc)…which led to a boom in ticks.
But we have Seresto and sprays for yards and all that now… so it is what it is.
Im a magnet for ticks… i read yesterday to take a bath in regular palmolive…every time you go outside… not sure if thats a wives tale.
I’ve been treating sets of clothes with permethrin for years. Zero ticks on either my wife or me when we wear the treated clothes. Pretty easy solution
3 Likes
Google claims the pigmy rattlesnake lives in the floodplains, mixed forests, Sandhills and flat woods. Pictures lend me to believe your city is by the ocean and your elevation is at 7 feet according to google. It sounds like they are closer to the appleacians and there is quite the difference between the ocean and the mountains of NC. I have not checked NC out in person but I have looked at NC as a place to live via google.