Saturday, August 12, 2017

Grapes and lace

This is the season for Queen Anne's lace, known in France as carotte sauvage (wild carrot). It's growing especially thick this year. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing the spaces between the rows of grape vines this crowded with it. It's probably just that the growers are not mowing it down or are cutting back on the use of herbicides.

The vine parcel just outside our back gate. That's our garden shed on the right.

Of course, not all the parcels look like this. Some are quite bare (at ground level) from herbicides, others have been plowed to uproot the weeds and wildflowers, and still others have been mowed to keep the weeds under control. I wonder what difference it all makes to the vines (although using fewer chemical herbicides is probably a good thing for the environment over all).

5 comments:

  1. I've not seen the likes of this. I also wonder if the invaders have any effect on the grapes. I would think if they get tall enough and thick enough, they would start blocking the sunlight. But otherwise, I agree the fewer herbicides the better.

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  2. Queen Anne's Lace always reminds me of my grandparents farm. Thanks for the memory. :)

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  3. Wow, so thick and beautiful!

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  4. More organic farms are doing this -- it is a natural mulch, so they say. In my garden it is my excuse for not removing each weed as it appears....

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