The third Wine and Weeds Walk on Saturday, July 19, featured a vast greeness growing about the Stable grounds and guest speaker Thomas Bredenberg, a member of the ECIA Conservation Committee and a gardener who enriches his home garden with manure from the Stable.
Thom embraced the different greenspace needs at Eldorado. At the Stable Amenity, the greenspace supports a wide variety of native and introduced species that have self-selected to those that survive soil disturbance and competition, along with grazing.
During the walk, Thom identified native and introduced plants at the Stable. The monsoons have encouraged the native plants to flourish, as well as an abundance of introduced plants. Newly sprouted introduced plants, in vast quantities, are purslane, amaranth, and lambsquarters–along with the common troublesome ones–kochia, Russian thistle, and puncture vine. His preferred management methods are hand pulling–especially when the weeds are small–along with grazing and mowing. The Conservation Committee also uses a vinegar based herbicide.
Thom also previewed for us, the next weed article for Vistas; plus shared his favorite pocket reference, Troublesome Weeds of New Mexico (available through NM State Extension Service); and shared a weed article specifically for equestrians, Locoweed Poisoning of Horses, Guide B-713 from NM State University.
Thank you, Carol Beidleman, Conservation Committee, and Amelia Adair, Eldorado Stable Committee, for introducing Thomas Bredenberg to us.
