After more than a week when it was so hot outdoors that my philosophy became “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the garden!” it was an absolute shock to come out of a meeting into a cool and windy afternoon when it was fortunate that I had my coat in the car.
The cool air was a definite bonus, but with the wind blowing the wildfire smoke out of the area instead of into it, it was all too clear that all those 30-degree-plus temperatures had agreed all too well with the weed growth. It’s not that the garden had been ignored completely, with the sprinkler going full blast on one row or another for hour-and-a–half sessions in early morning and late evening, and it was then possible to weed, once the ground and plants weren’t sopping wet at the time. But then the sun would climb over the trees or dusk would fall, and the weeding would be put off again.
Strangely enough, this time it wasn’t my old enemy quack grass that was my new nemesis – but a wide variety of suddenly huge weeds, which although they had been barely above the ground when the weather first heated up, now were right there needing to be dealt with. I also found it strange that almost none of those weeds were dandelions - I guess they all wanted to stay on the lawn.
Most of them were familiar – thistles, sow thistles, nettles, pigweed (which many of us remember our mothers cooking in lieu of spinach when we were kids), chickweed, which a friend of mine claims is great in salad, and miles and miles of bindweed, which, according to Google, can grow to 200 cm long. I don’t even think that’s an exaggeration, and we have a bumper crop of that and the chickweed. Fortunately our chickens love all those weeds and get very excited when they get their daily bucketful of them, even on the hottest days.
The only ‘weed’ that I don’t remember seeing before turned out to be borage, which is not a weed but a medicinal herb with many uses – one that the same friend, who is heavily into the growing and use of herbs and things I would call weeds, was surprised to hear that we had in our garden, she didn’t know it would grow here.
If I recall correctly, kids used to make labelled weed collection posters, but I never did, although I’m sure that was something my father would have been totally in favour of. I know he did teach me what all of those weeds were, back then, and I’m glad he’s no longer around to see this weed collection.
Father was a weed warrior, and would be horrified that I hadn’t yanked every one out of the ground as soon as it emerged. I remember him going out in the grain fields if a sow thistle dared to poke its bloom above the crop, anxious to get it pulled and out of sight before the dreaded weed inspector should happen by, and if a thistle or dandelion showed up in the garden, it definitely wasn’t there for long.
I remember one of his great enemies was something called toad flax, and I have to say I have no recollection of what that looked like, so possibly it doesn’t grow here. Another weed he hated – and so did I, not wanting my ankle socks to get anywhere near them – was the blue burr, which I think is less common here, and I don’t mind that one bit. He also would not tolerate the existence of portulaca, which popped up uninvited all over our yard and would send him out with a hoe to whack it off. I was amazed when I grew up and found that people actually planted it on purpose!
I guess it’s true that one gardener’s weed is another gardener’s treasure, but as for me, I’d treasure getting each and every one of the plants I consider weeds out of the garden and in the compost bin. But I may just save the borage, in case my friend wants to experiment with it!
