DANDELIONS are the BEST INDICATORS of...

dandy-lion do you hate it or do you love it find out what it is doing in your yard or garden or Orchard stay tuned [Music] so dandelions I saw this week a father showing his son how to pull out and weed dandelion and how to throw it in the garbage and I thought wow is that your situation are you passing on the knowledge of how to destroy this plant to your kids and if so okay let me give you some reasons you may hate that any line you see you know I keep getting rid of it you know what dandelions actually doing in your yard and why you have it or why you have a lot where you don't have hardly any that's what we'll look at if you have some dandelions it's really a very useful indicator plant you see we got a little bit of dandy line here and it's it's showing you a few things the first one that you'll usually see dandelion associated with is your soil is compacted it's pressed down it's packed tight and so dandelion have you ever weeded dandelion you know that big tap root it's actually trying to doesn't really drill down but it's trying to get through the soil so that that soil is d compacted or loosened so that's what it's trying to do and you know what happens when you actually pull it out and throw out the root it says sand the second wave you get it send another weight because it's trying to do a job and you are pulling it out and getting rid of it alright the job's not finished send a second wave so compaction is one reason another reason you get it and one of the reasons we get it here a little bit still this is nothing show you a picture of what it looked like when we bought this place and it was if you bent down like this all you would see across the orchard was yellow you wouldn't even see green well that was certainly indicating something and I knew then already what some of the problems are that it was trying to solve so I knew our soil here because it's and it's not really compaction that's the problem so what else could it be the next biggest reason you get dandelion is your soil is lacking calcium and there are not many plants that are considered calcium pumps you see this imagine this stem and then you get a root and then it goes down down down down and deep into the ground beyond the range of your grass it can take that calcium that's down deep and pump it up into well into the leaves and into the flowers so by pumping that calcium up if you leave the dandelion that dandelion now that's rich in calcium and these are very rich in calcium the leaves they will die on the surface or even if you mow it and if you mow it and you cut these two tops say and this is left so if you mow and you leave it so now these pieces are left on your surface of the soil what's gonna happen with them their calcium rich they will decompose and they will bring that calcium into your grass and gradually your sort your soil level of calcium will go back to where it should be and then they will have done their job so that's that's another big reason that's what we had a real lack of calcium and I remember the day that I realized Wow dandy line had done their job it wasn't roots and it wasn't flour I mean it wasn't leaves and it wasn't flowers who was actually the roots and I heard a scuffle going on we had geese at the time and I thought what are they fighting over so much one of them had pulled up a dandelion root and the other one wanted it and they were fighting for a dandelion rooted I thought wow we used to have a sea of dandelions why are they fighting over one root and I have to look around and realize you know what it's kind of like this there was very few dandelions left so they have to fight over it because it was not many around so I realized wow we went from complete yellow to well some of you would say that's quite a lot and I'll tell you another reason why not shortly but this is this is had done their they had done their job we weren't removing material we weren't taking out dandelions and so they had finished their job the calcium levels were good and we really virtually don't have dandelions anymore the other reason that you'll get it is your soil is too acid and we don't we have an almost a neutral pH soil here but if your soils acid it'll encourage dandelion and let them restore the soil bounce because they really like a more neutral level of acidity in the soil so that's another reason you could leave them do their job and the last one and the reason we still have some dandelion is when you have too much shade for the grass the dandelion starts to come in because it's just too shady dandelion is a spring flower it grows a lot in the spring takes advantage of the Sun you see the leaves have just started to come in on the on the fruit trees and up until now the dandelion have been pumping away and building up their reserves so because they're a spring plant they use their energy and now they're not really growing much so they're done for the season until the fall and they'll grow back more leaves in the fall so they can grow where the grass can't grow grass needs at least eight hours of full Sun and so now in here because we've got taller trees we have a little too much shade for some of the grass and it thins out and the dandelion can grow if you're at all concerned about wildlife and you think well you know there's frogs and there's birds but there's a lot of insects dandelion you ever notice it's kind of the first one to flower mass a lot of flowers and it happens to be the most important nectar source and pollen for the first insects to emerge in your yard if you're removing it you're actually getting rid of a lot of beneficial insects insects that are trying to get rid of some pests in your yard maybe and if you're taking these flowers away you're chopping them off and you're weeding them out then what are they gonna eat don't go somewhere else so you want those beneficial insects to work in your garden so maybe leave them and let them finish their job they'll reduce in a few years on their own and you won't need to use tools or especially not herbicides to get rid of them that's the tip for wildlife and biodiversity now let me show you one way that you can see the dandelions telling you at what stage it is is it dominating the landscape or is it kind of hanging on because if you let it do a job it will go from here's a good one let's look at this one here see that see that look at the leaves how are they angled there when you see a dandy line basically angled like this they're going please give me some Sun I need some Sun because well this case it's the shrub is shading it the grass isn't that thick and so it's on its last stage it's not really getting stronger but when you see dandelion like it is here or here you see their pattern they are basically they're dominating they are opened up and now they can take the whole space and that's what they do they'll open up and they dominate means here they haven't finished their job and I know that this area is about a little bit clay in our soil so because we walk here so much we have probably compacted this a little bit and in some places dandelion is finding it a good place to do some D compaction here's a really good one completely open but you see how we see some bare ground here so it's just filling up bare ground filling the space covering the ground because nature hates bare soil where you can have grass and so it's growing like this if you see it gradually going where the leaves close up then you know that it's kind of finished its job so look at your situation do you hate these things or do you love them or if you're neutral that's okay too but realize that they're trying to do a job for you for your lawn for your field for your orchard and which one are they doing look at where they're growing are they growing there because it's too shady for grass if you have a lot of trees that could be the main reason are they growing there because it's compacted because it's a spot like here in the middle where we walk a lot and so we're packing the ground down is it because your soil is too acid maybe you have a big conifer and the needles are falling and it makes the soil more acid that could be a reason you're having dandelion or are you actually lacking calcium and they're trying to pump that calcium from deep in put it back on the surface where if the grass has it it has sufficient calcium and it will crowd out the dandelion and the dandelions trying to tell you what it's doing is it Oh Dominic and have all the space and its leaves are showing you that it's in the first stage or is it the last stage where now it's so crowded by the grass that it has to grow its leaves upright the plant is telling you take a look at it learn to listen what it's trying to do and be thankful for these little plants that are actually trying to solve the problems in your soil so thanks for watching see you next time bye hey please subscribe and check out our latest video [Music] acidity too much shade and [Music]

Channel: Stefan Sobkowiak

Views: 625,982

Rating: 4.8408122 out of 5

Keywords: dandelion, dandelions, dandelion help, stefan sobkowiak, miracle farms, miracle farm, pest, get rid of, how to, orchard, garden, weed, weeds, food forest, permaculture, permaculture orchard, nature, flower, flowers, farm, farming, plant, plants, planting, calcium, calcium deficiency, lack of, compacted, compaction, compact, soil, soils, acid, acidic, acidity, acid soil, shady, shade, shaded, full sun, sunny, sun, lawn, grass, minerals, mineral, remove, eliminate, seeds, birds, fluff, leaves, root, leaf, roots, deep, taproot

Id: bpEy-Mpm6AI

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019