From Weeds to WOW—The Weed Island

Weeds, otherwise known as plants growing where you don’t want them, are often vigorous competitors that outperform the cultivated plants we prefer in our gardens. They’ve adapted to fill crevices, to survive in less than hospitable soil conditions, to be resistant to pests and diseases, and to spread at the speed of light – sunlight, that is. They fare better through drought and can even endure standing water longer than our preferred plant varieties. In truth, the plants that we call weeds in our gardens are the best, most resilient cultivars on earth – selected by nature, generation after generation, for their exquisite performance in helping protect soils from erosion, encourage soil life, and hold moisture.

Instead of hating them for the extra work they create for us in the form of weeding, we should reward them for their incredible contributions to soil building by sending them off on an island retreat. Who doesn’t love an extended island vacation? Lots of rest, no work or responsibilities, lounging about in the sun with your feet up… Well, this is exactly what you can do to show appreciation for your hard-working weeds.

How to Create a Weed Island

Step 1) Skip the gym and “round-up” your best weed-friends.
On days when you feel energetic (preferably after a recent rain so the soil is easier to work), put on your gym clothes, gather your trusty wheelbarrow and spade, and head out to your weediest areas. Then “round-up” those wonderful weeds (without glyphosate) using your own two hands. A lot of weeds, like crabgrass, spurge, and smart weed, send out little runners that tack down and re-root, so you may need to loosen up the runners and give a good tug on the central plant to successfully dislodge your weed-friends. When a good tug won’t do it, you can give those weeds a lift with the spade. Don’t worry about dusting off the soil, particularly if it comes up in clumps and is loaded with earth worms. All that rhizosphere (living soil surrounding weed roots) is also welcome on weed-island.

Oh, and by the way, weeding burns about 280-400 calories an hour (depending on your size and vigor) – almost as much as jogging, but with the added bonus of bettering your garden.

Step 2) Cruise to your island destination and help your weed-friends get some well-deserved rest.

When you’ve got your wheelbarrow loaded with all your weed-friends, pick a nice, sunny spot in your yard to start a new island-style planting bed. Stack your weeds, root-side-up, into a mound at least 18 inches above ground. The exact height is up to you, but 18 inches of loose weeds will eventually decompose back down to just a few inches above ground level. It also gives you critical mass to help keep your weed-friends from regrowing in their new location.

You can make your planting island as big or small as you want it, depending on your availability of weeds and amount of space (not to mention how much weeding you want to do). However, a weed-island is a great way to start a fruit tree guild. If you want to build a weed-island large enough to accommodate a dwarf-sized tree guild, shoot for an 8-10 foot diameter island. You can also use your weed-island as a “keyhole” planting bed by making it 6-8 feet in diameter and leaving a little pie-sliced path weed-free so you can stand in the center of the circle.

Once your weed-friends are resting easy with their root feet up, you need to give them time for a little R & R. If you have a run of sunny, dry days on radar, just let your weeds dry out in the open air for a week or so. If not, you may want to cover them with a couple black trash bags or a tarp to make sure they rest (in peace) on their island get away. Don’t worry about the worms in the clumps, they’re smart and will move down, deeper in the pile to dine on the now rapidly decaying weed roots closer to ground-level.

Step 3) Make your weed-island more remote with a moat.

After your top layer of weeds have achieved a nice golden-brown tan color, dig a little trench around your island and layer the topsoil from the trench over the weed pile. The trench serves a couple of purposes: 1) it provides free topsoil, 2) it turns your pile of weeds into an island, by creating a moat-like environment for water to catch and penetrate the ground, and 3) it creates a temporary natural barrier, so other weeds don’t get ambitious and try to move to your new island bed.

If you have persnickety neighbors, you can backfill the trench to level using large wood chips so it doesn’t look like…well, an empty moat. If you don’t mind the trench-aesthetic, it will eventually accumulate a lot of natural material and be less obvious.

Step 4) Do a little dance.

Normally, you want to avoid stepping directly on planting beds to prevent soil compaction. But just this once, since you have at least 18 inches of un-compacted, un-decomposed weed mass under your topsoil cover, you can dance the topsoil down a bit. Whack it with a rake to break-up clumps of soil, then give it a good two-step, starting from the sides working your way to the top, being careful not to knock the topsoil back into the trench as you go.

Step 5) Plant paradise.
At this point it will look a whole lot like someone dumped a pile of dirt in your yard. Except, it’s not just dirt. Thanks to all those weeds and their worm friends vacationing on your island, it’s now glorious, living “soil” in the making. In time, those weeds will decompose and release nitrogen and other nutrients into the soil. The air pockets and decomposing material under the surface will make it a really nice environment for all sorts of microbial and fungal life. As all that new life digests those exquisitely useful weeds, it will become a lovely planting environment for a new edible garden island.

But no one likes to wait and we certainly don’t want a hulking pile of dirt in our yard that might become home to more weeds. So, at this point, you have two choices. You can cover the whole pile with mulch and let it do it’s magic over a season or two (e.g. if you make your island in summer, plant in spring the following year). Or, you can seed it with a fast growing cover crop like buckwheat. Buckwheat has lovely white flowers that attract all sorts of beneficial insects, it grows in weeks not months, and it fixes nitrogen, speeding up the process of making the island ready for your long-term plants. It out-competes other weeds by getting tall fast. It also self-seeds (if you let it). Buckwheat is frost-sensitive, so it will die back and act as layer of mulch in the cold-weather, or you can chop it down before you plant and allow the cut stalks to remain on the bed as a mulch layer.

If you go the buckwheat route, scatter the seeds over the mound, then cover with a light layer of compost or straw. This gives the seeds some protection from birds until they establish. Water regularly until the buckwheat sprouts.

Step 6) Start an island guild.

Once your island is well-established, it’s time to start a guild of island inhabitants. Generally spring and fall are good times to establish new fruit tree guilds. Keep your island planted or mulched until you are ready to grow your guild.

The goal of any kind of guild is to create a support system for all the members. In a fruit tree guild, you want to pick plants that work well together and help each other solve problems. Of course, you also want to get some delicious goodies in return for your hard work making a weed island, so pick things you want to eat whenever you can. Your exact guild is up to you to determine, but in general supportive guilds usual include the following guild members:

• A mulch-maker like comfrey, horseradish, or hostas.
• A beneficial insect-attractor like yarrow, parsley, or mint.
• A pest-deterrent like garlic, chives, or Egyptian walking onions.
• A nitrogen fixer like goumi, Siberian pea shrub, or blue false indigo.

You can also throw in other edibles like strawberries as ground cover or grapes as a vine layer. There are incredible resources out there if you want to delve deeper into the inner-workings of guilds (Gaia’s Garden, Edible Forest Gardens, and many more). But you can also just dive right in and try different combinations. If something doesn’t work well in your guild, you can always try moving it to another location in your garden or swap plants with other gardeners.

Start your guild by picking and positioning your tree. You want to pick varieties that grow well in your area. Specifically, make sure the trees are right for your number of chill hours (hours of dormancy between 32 – 45 degrees), your USDA hardiness zone, and your AHS heat zone. To minimize maintenance, select varieties that are resistant to the diseases that are common in your region. Also, some trees require cross-pollination – meaning you need to plant two compatible trees to get fruit. Unless you have two weed-islands to plant, you may want to focus on self-fertile tree varieties. Although you can pick up trees at the hardware store and have success, it’s really helpful to visit and talk with local fruit tree growers who can help you make the right selection for your edible island.

Your tree will be the tallest feature on your island. You need to position it to allow the other members of your plant guilds to get the right amount of sun. For example, in North America, if you place your tree at the center of your island, you will get more shade on the northern half of the island. If you want to plant lots of sun-loving plants in your guild, you may opt to plant your tree on the northern hemisphere of your island and plant the rest of your guild members in your southern hemisphere. You can use a shade simulator like this one http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion3/motion3.html to get an idea of where your shade and shadows will fall to help you determine where to plant your guild. You can plug your address into Google maps to get your latitude if you need it.

Once you’ve selected and positioned your tree, then choose the rest of your guild members. Keep in mind the mature size of your selected guild members when determining where and what to plant. For example, comfrey can get 3-5 feet wide in a moist, sunny location. So you may want to position it a few feet from your tree base to get the most mulch benefit and also give it enough room so it doesn’t crowd your other guild members. Using placeholders when laying out your space is helpful. You can lay down newspaper or trash bags, cut/spread to the right size, so you get an idea of the space that will be covered by your plants when they mature.

When you like the spacing and arrangement of your layout, dig in!

Step 7) Last but not least…
Finally, now that your weed-island is established, like your hard-working weeds, you also deserve to put your feet-up and enjoy some R & R!

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Tasha Greer

Tasha Greer is a regular contributor to The Grow Network and has cowritten several e-books with Marjory Wildcraft. The author of “Grow Your Own Spices” (December 2020), she also blogs for MorningChores.com and Mother Earth News. For more tips on homesteading and herb and spice gardening, follow Tasha at Simplestead.com.

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