Monday, November 3, 2008

How long is a tap root?


Most people hate weeding. Me, I kind of like it. Sure, it's repetitive and you spend a lot of time hunched over. But it's also meditative work, and can add a lot of good stuff to your compost (assuming your composter is hot enough to kill off weed seeds).

As I was turning soil to make new beds this autumn, I pulled up many huge weeds. I got to know which plants have shallow roots, deep roots, rhyzomes and tap roots. And some of them were impressive. Just look at the picture above of some grass that came up when I loosened the soil. Those roots just go on forever! For scale, the plant is on a 2x6 plank.

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