30 April
2014
Weeds
weed
noun
noun: weed; plural noun: weeds
-
1.a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.
verb
-
1.remove unwanted plants from (an area of ground or the plants cultivated in it).
Origin
Old English wēod (noun), wēodian (verb), of unknown origin; related to Dutch wieden (verb).
As I was weeding in the greenhouse the other day I was forced to question my definition of a weed. I happily yanked up the Kosha and pig weed but all the others gave me doubt. What exactly qualifies for weed status? The definition seems simple enough.
In reality though even pig weed is edible, it needs cooked and I don’t think I feel like trying it so that was an easy decision.
We planted the Strawberry Spinach a couple of years ago, it has been coming up in a weed like manner ever since. I have even found it growing happily in our yard. It gets little, rather bland, red berries and the leaves are good in salads. Should I pull all of it? Leave a couple of plants? It is so hard to decide.
Purslane is very edible. We have even gone so far as to pick some, just never got around to throwing it in a stir fry. It is so horribly, well, weed like that it has to go.
The hardest decisions come when I spot the dark purple leaves of a baby pepper plant. There are green ones too of course but the purple are awful pretty. All of the seeds dropped from last years plants seem to have taken off and are thriving. If we had tried to plant them they would have frozen if they came up at all.
Intermixed with those are the tomatoes. They too are coming up to early, it’s still freezing almost every night, but nobody told them that. These are things that we are purposefully planting. Struggling to grow even. Everyone of them have very legitimate uses. Do we cherish one plant and kill another? It seems so wrong.
Can you tell the weeds from the desired plants? I have trouble deciding sometimes. For the record, I didn’t pull any pepper or tomato plants. I especially didn’t pull that nice little Mulberry tree in the last picture.
yes I agree most so called weeds are edabal and have much higher nutrition thin plant\’s we widely accepted tha y grow better in harsh wether are some times free things change people forget what once was is no more till it\’s new agen
When I was a kid my grand mother would come to visit and we would take a walk while she picked weeds, which she called greens, to take home and cook. I was so embarrassed. Now I wish I had paid attention and learned from her.
How long before you will get mulberries from your baby tree?
And, lastly, is Perslain also called moss rose?
I do hope it is really a Mulberry tree and not for a very long time.
No Moss Rose is different, I don\’t think it is edible. Moss Rose does grow quite well around here.