Weed Control in Milpa: Hand Weeding, Cereal Rye Mulch, and What Works
Learn practical weed control strategies for milpa production, from hand weeding on small plots to using cereal rye as a natural mulch mat. We cover why chemical options aren't available in milpa systems, how to use a roller crimper for effective termination, and what to expect when managing diversity in your garden.
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0:00 One of the biggest questions that people ask about this whole milpa program is how do I control weeds within our milpa mix. And to be honest that's one of
0:08 The biggest challenges is gonna be very difficult because of the diversity that's in this mix. There's no chemicals that you can use.
0:18 Which because you're growing produce anyway that's not a bad thing to not be able to use chemicals, however their weeds are going to be an issue. So when there's no chemical options there's
0:30 Several options left for you. Number one, if you're doing it on a small scale, you can do hand weeding, at least to get the weeds out that you really don't like to see out there.
0:40 That would be one option, very labor intensive and probably not practical if you're doing milpa on a large scale. If you are doing it on a larger scale, the best thing that we've seen for weed
0:50 Control has to start the year before. Where we've seen the cleanest milpa garden fields is where the farmer has planted cereal rye the fall before. They let that cereal rye grow up and get.
1:03 Five or six feet tall and they come through with a roller crimper of some sort and they flatten that cereal rye. And if you do it right when the cereal rye is headed out and shedding.
1:24 Difficult to seed. And at that point you will need a drill to cut through that thatch and get the seed planted, so it's very effective weed control.
1:34 And it will keep your soil cool through the summer. You just have to have a way to be able to see through that, so that's the best way that we've.
1:42 Seen with weed control, the other thing is, you know, this is a milpa garden. It's okay to have some weeds in there and some weeds out there, and so you just have to learn to live with some.
1:54 Of them and we have had people if it gets too bad you may have to mow it off, turn the cattle out there. Sometimes things don't work out the way that we had planned, and so that may be an option as well.