Weeds

Those who know me well will know also that I have a sneaking admiration for weeds - for those plants which so ably exploit our wild edges and forgotten bits, and indeed, any bit of soil we turn over, and then turn away from and neglect for a while.  I called to look at a garden the other day that I cleared and planted earlier in the season, and was amazed at how quickly weeds had carpeted the open soil.  There must have been plenty of seeds from previous years, just waiting for their chance to germinate.

Weeds get in the way of our crops.  This morning I've been hauling weeds out of veg beds for another client - often a very satisfying way of spending a morning (even more so when you get paid for it!).  But many of our crops were weeds to begin with, and some of our present-day weeds used to be crop plants.  I had to ask my client whether one particular plant next to her lettuces was wanted or unwanted:  it was wanted - but two other species in the same bed, condemned as weeds, would have tasted just as good in a salad bowl.

What's to admire in a weed?  The speed and efficiency with which they exploit opportunities, I suppose - I wish I could be half as good.  Then there is the persistence with which they hang on in there:  perennial weeds via their deep roots that you can't easily shift, annuals by the seeds which they produce both speedily and prolifically, and which often persist well in the soil, just waiting their time.  Many weeds are quite flexible, too, able to exploit a number of habitats, and to fight their corner in a variety of situations.

What's to disapprove of?  I suppose weeds are by their nature useless (from our point of view - even though as I've already hinted, the transition from useless weed to useful crop can sometimes be a short step).  But they do take up space that the gardener would want to use more productively, and I suppose in that sense weeds are in it for themselves, they are by definition selfish plants.

Though that raises another issue:  who defines that?  Whose right is it to say what is productive and useful, and what isn't?  And aren't all living things by nature selfish, in it for themselves?  Ecosystems are balanced states in which a variety of different species of living thing live together - but in practice that balance is a balance of mostly competing and only very rarely co-operating forces, so far as I can see, anyway.

So I seem to have talked myself out of using weeds as either a positive or a negative moral example.  No matter.  I still think they're worthy competitors.