growers look at what I’m doing and break into a cold sweat. That’s because I don’t mow these plants until the flowers are over and their seeds have set. The birds eat some of them. The rest fall into the soil. People have nightmares about the seedbanks in their soil. They think weeds are bad and want to eliminate them. But at many points in a crop’s life, if the soil is fertile and healthy, weed competition is not a problem at all. They are the crop’s understorey. They keep the soil covered. Eliminating weeds isn’t possible and isn’t desirable.
