I’ve just completely let my field go natural this summer. I haven’t even bothered doing any spot spraying or nothing. A lot of folks would look at it and stroke out. There’s regular morning glory and cypress vine morning glory growing up stalks of dog fennel…..There’s red root pigweed growing in patches of crabgrass alongside bushes of sicklepod……There’s blackberries, dewberries, teaweed, pokeweed, ragweed, vervain, goldenrod, spurge nettle, Bermuda grass, florida pusley, cutleaf primrose, dandelion, white clover, lambs quarter, marestail, and more…..and its all growing THICK!

That’s a lot of diversity….……There’s flowers all over the field of red, yellow, white, purple, blue, pink……with a crazy amount of insect life buzzing through the field…and I mean a crazy amount too….there’s flying critters going everywhere…..multiple species of butterflies, dragonflies, grasshoppers, beetles, humming birds, crickets, cicadas, and on and on…..In the afternoon some type of bird comes in and it looks like an airport with dozens of them zipping back and forth. I’ve counted 8 different species of snakes so far…..found dens of baby rabbits……moles…..field mice…..foxes…..turkey……deer…..it’s teaming with life. Many would look at my field and see it as nothing but a bunch of weeds. I look it at and see it as the exact blueprint for what we’re wanting to do. It’s a complete ecosystem and not just a field of dirt.

It’s also lush green and putting out chit loads of biomass growth and I haven’t added any fertilizer since a small dose of N last fall. Keep in mind that with all of that diversity above ground comes diversity below ground through microbes and root structure…... All the critters below ground along with plant roots are improving my field by turning dirt into properly functioning soil……. Soil that has structure……Soil that lets water infiltrate properly and get proper oxygen flow to the roots…..Soil that has a regulated temp…..Soil that holds moisture…….It’s all connected…..This will in turn improve my fall plots of cereal grains, brassicas, clovers.