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Basically, I am wondering if there is something I could plant in a small stretch of woods in the northeast USA (zone 5b) that would outcompete and smother poison ivy without taking out everything else.

Ideally, something not adapted to frost, that would grow quickly and beat out the poison ivy but die off in the winter. Or at least something that could be manually ripped out without needing to suit up for handling it.

I don’t want to spray herbicide, salt etc in the woods, and leaning down is difficult for me because I have a neck impairment, so I’m not looking to hunt down and spray each individual poison ivy leaf.

Digging out the roots of the poison ivy last summer was a fruitless effort because those roots were crazy well established.

But I would really like to be able to clear a path down there and not have to worry about poison ivy. It hasn’t really started to take off yet but it definitely will over the next month. I planted some Nasturtium that took off really well around this time last year, but it grew in full sun. I’m not sure if that would be effective in an area that’s going to be largely shaded once the tree canopies fill out again.

An area of lawn that I sheet mulched 9 months ago. The soil is so gorgeous and worms in every scoop. I’m so happy.

Hi Y’all, wannabe permie here with a small garden bed that is currently exploding with cherry tomatoes that we would love to eat but I’m a bit hesitant. I setup this bed in March of last year – I dug down about 24″ into the native soil and did this kinda hugulkultur style – I layed down some palm logs and other big branches. I then added a couple inch layer of wood chip, and then a couple inches of fresh quail manure from a guy nearby. I covered that with a few more inches of wood chip, then another layer of quail shit, then another layer of woodchip. I then added some mycorrhizae, rock dusts, humic acid, bone meal, and whatever random amendments I could find in my shed. I then added about a 8″ layer of a quality garden soil mix from a local farm. I’ve sprayed the entire bed a couple times with homemade lacto bacillus serum. I planted this cherry tomato in the garden back in October – I’m in AZ – and thanks to a super mild winter it did well and now has exploded – it has literally taken over the entire 16’x3′ bed so its loving life, and I think all that N from the quail manure is a big part of this. My question – is there concern about possible pathogens from the quail manure since it was fresh when I added it last year? I’m leaning towards no with the bed hopefully ‘teeming with microbes’ that have outcompeted any bad guys, but what do you all think?

I’m curious about what plants you grow to provide yourself with building materials to make things like fencing, baskets, garden supports, weaving. Also, what are you making and how are your harvesting? (pollarding?)

The obvious answer is willow, which I would really love to hear your experience with, but wondering what else you are growing and using as material sources.

This month, I talk about a common “weedy” plant that has a hidden tasty secret (eating Silene dioica): https://urbanfoodforest.substack.com/p/hidden-in-plain-sight

I think Silene is a sleeping giant. There’s of course S. vulgaris (bladder campion, stridolo, maidenstears), but there are more than 900 species and an unknown subset of these are edible. Much to explore and I’ve barely scratched the surface with this article on S. dioica!