The White Cliffs of Dover
Trying to see the positive or negative effects of white clover use for agricultural benefits, and I’m just trying to collect some data to see how it can be applied in the real world.
Good afternoon, everyone. I live up in northern California where the summers are hot and the winters are cold, and there’s not much in between. I have been trying to plant white clover seeds this summer in my back yard as a substitute for grass, but so far both of my attempts have failed.
My first attempt was back in May when the heat was just starting; I watered them as often as I could between work, but not a single seed sprouted. I tried again this last week now that the heat’s dying and there’s even a little week, but so far I haven’t seen a single seed sprout.
What am I doing wrong? Is it the way that I’m planting? Both times I sprinkled the seeds over the soil and ran a rake over the ground to spread everything out and deepen it into the ground. I could understand if this method didn’t work for all of the seeds, but I would expect to see at least a few sprout by now. It’s very frustrating and discouraging to see no results after both attempts.
So I’ve recently learned that white clover is great ground cover and for soil because it provides nitrogen to the soil.
But I have a strawberry patch (that was probably being attacked by a fungus because it had brown/yellow spots all over it at the end of the season) that got demolished by weeds. Lotsa tall grass, lambs quarter, quickweed, black nightshades, musk thistle.
Killed most of my strawberry patch (at least I think that’s the reason).
So does that mean not all weeds are good?
Or does it mean that too much of a good thing can become bad?
I tilled, and then pluck the weeds when I see them pop up. Left alone for about a month and weeds went crazy, got huge.
If I were to pluck the weeds, I read that they contain nutrients, so if you pluck them you’re taking the nutrients out of the soil, unless you place the cut weeds right on top of the soil to decompose and recycle the nutrients back into the soil. Is that true?
And yes, I’m quite new to plant agriculture, if you couldn’t tell.
