The lowly weed is the object of a kind of racial discrimination in the domestic garden, yanked from rows of cultivated plants with haste and segregated to the borders of the cabbage patch. Weeds with plebeian names are viewed as interlopers, competing with more valuable plants for the soil's nutrients. But in many cases, the plants our culture views as enemies to the garden have tremendous value in other cultures.
Keeping this in mind, I was intrigued by the words of Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) who wrote about the effect of one week of rain on his dried garden plot in the Northeast United States in an essay entitled, The Garden and Its Enemies.*
Warner's produce bearing plants thrived from the soaking, as did the "propagatious" weeds. One weed in particular, called the "pusley", outgrew his ability to keep it at bay; but he noted that in a neighbor's garden, a Chinese worker harvested and prepared a savory meal by boiling the weed with eggs:
Who can say that other weeds which we despise may not be the favorite food of some remote people or tribe. We ought to abate our conceit. It is possible that we destroy in our gardens that which is really of most value in some other place. Perhaps, in like manner, our faults and vices are virtues in some remote planet. I cannot see, however, that this thought is of the slightest value to us here, any more than the weeds are.
In fact many of the most common weeds throughout the U.S. have an enormous value in other countries and cultures, like quinoa, filaree, and lamb's quarters or goosefoot. Common weeds, like milk thistle and St John's Wort, contribute to the quality of the soil, while providing homeopathic remedies for depression and lack of energy.
So, is it possible to cultivate weeds alongside more productive plants? Not always. Weeds contain the same mechanisms to thrive as vegetables, but in most cases, the weeds are more efficient at germinating and reproducing than their cultivated cousins, therefore they grow faster, resist common pests and other obstacles to growth, and sometimes they even produce substances that inhibit the growth of surrounding plants.
Any successful gardener will tell you that plants thrive in gardens that resemble diverse communities. "Companion planting" is a practice learned from indigenous tribes in which plants like squash, corn, and pole beans are planted side by side to promote the growth of each other. As one faithful farmer described it:
Plants thrive because of the community they live in.
For the gardener, whether in an urban plot or a rural setting, weeds arrive by their design, not ours. It would serve our gardens and our harvests well if we took a good look at the potential value of a weed before letting it fall prey to our own conceit.
* From Mark Twain's Library of Humor, Steve Martin, editor, Modern Library of Humor and Wit, Random House, NY, 2000 p.386
Keeping this in mind, I was intrigued by the words of Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) who wrote about the effect of one week of rain on his dried garden plot in the Northeast United States in an essay entitled, The Garden and Its Enemies.*
Warner's produce bearing plants thrived from the soaking, as did the "propagatious" weeds. One weed in particular, called the "pusley", outgrew his ability to keep it at bay; but he noted that in a neighbor's garden, a Chinese worker harvested and prepared a savory meal by boiling the weed with eggs:
Who can say that other weeds which we despise may not be the favorite food of some remote people or tribe. We ought to abate our conceit. It is possible that we destroy in our gardens that which is really of most value in some other place. Perhaps, in like manner, our faults and vices are virtues in some remote planet. I cannot see, however, that this thought is of the slightest value to us here, any more than the weeds are.
In fact many of the most common weeds throughout the U.S. have an enormous value in other countries and cultures, like quinoa, filaree, and lamb's quarters or goosefoot. Common weeds, like milk thistle and St John's Wort, contribute to the quality of the soil, while providing homeopathic remedies for depression and lack of energy.
So, is it possible to cultivate weeds alongside more productive plants? Not always. Weeds contain the same mechanisms to thrive as vegetables, but in most cases, the weeds are more efficient at germinating and reproducing than their cultivated cousins, therefore they grow faster, resist common pests and other obstacles to growth, and sometimes they even produce substances that inhibit the growth of surrounding plants.
Any successful gardener will tell you that plants thrive in gardens that resemble diverse communities. "Companion planting" is a practice learned from indigenous tribes in which plants like squash, corn, and pole beans are planted side by side to promote the growth of each other. As one faithful farmer described it:
Plants thrive because of the community they live in.
For the gardener, whether in an urban plot or a rural setting, weeds arrive by their design, not ours. It would serve our gardens and our harvests well if we took a good look at the potential value of a weed before letting it fall prey to our own conceit.
* From Mark Twain's Library of Humor, Steve Martin, editor, Modern Library of Humor and Wit, Random House, NY, 2000 p.386
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