You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. -Mary Oliver
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Anne Miller wrote:Most plants have some things to offer the world. What I consider the weed I dislike most has edible seed pods and is a great ground cover.
Many people are rethinking the usefulness of what many call weeds. Look at the lowly dandelion, for example.
I have heard a lot of responses to folks who ask about weeds, with what I would call "weed shaming"...............................So yes, lets not be so anti weed, but lets leave some room for understanding their presence doesn't make them perfect. They are mostly just present.
"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young
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Creating edible biodiversity and embracing everlasting abundance.
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. -Mary Oliver
Stephanie Meyer wrote:Identity - by Julio Noboa Polanco
Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed
Jd
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Idle dreamer
Daron Williams wrote:I don't mind weeds and I tend to let them be (with a few very specific exceptions). But my view is that weeds are not the "perfect" plant. Nature works with what it has available but nature does not always have a complete toolbox to work with. I'm going to have fun with this analogy
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There are many native plants who's populations have been eliminated from an area due to past human activities to the point that even the seeds are not present. These could be seen as lost tools.
There are also non-native plants that are not available. These could be seen as new tools that nature could try new things with.
The weeds are often the common plants that were introduced by humans. Though there are also plenty of native plants that people consider to be weeds. Weeds are the most available "tool" for nature to use to increase the abundance of a site.
But if I bring in other plants that I have identified through study and observation (perhaps observing other sites with similar conditions but different plant communities) then I can provide nature with new tools for the toolbox that might result in more abundance.
If these new tools are a better fit for the job then they will thrive at the site and spread.
To me nature is like an master builder who has lost most of the tools in the toolbox. As a master builder nature can do amazing things with what is left. But by bringing in new plants I can provide nature with a much better toolbox resulting in even more amazing things being built.
So I don't mind the weeds but I also don't think they are perfect. I think they represent nature doing the best work possible with that is available.
I see my roll in all of this as an assistant (or funder?) who can bring in new tools for nature to use. Sometimes these tools get thrown out but often they get used and result in more abundance than would have otherwise been there. Though often that abundance is created in a way that is different than what I expected. I provide the tools but nature wields them.
When I do remove "weeds" it is because sometimes the site just needs a bit of disturbance to provide space for true abundance to take shape. Disturbance in nature is not a negative if it does not repeat too often and is not too intense.
I also chop-and-drop and even remove plants that I planted once they filled their role in creating abundance. An example is shifting a site from being dominated by support species to being dominated by food producing species as a site matures.
Going back to the toolbox analogy sometimes while nature has done its best to create a masterpiece the available tools may have just been lacking. By creating some disturbance (removing some of the "weeds") and also providing nature with a larger toolbox I can help nature rebuild and create something even more amazing than before.
For me it comes down to avoiding treating this issue as black and white. I don't like it when people want to remove all weeds for no real reason other than the plant is a "weed". But I also think you can go too far the other way and never remove/replace a weed even when doing so could result in more abundance.
I like looking at each situation and figuring out what path will lead to the most abundance and act accordingly.
"It might have been fun to like, scoop up a little bit of that moose poop that we saw yesterday and... and uh, put that in.... just.... just so we know." - Paul W.
Hugo Morvan wrote:My friend is telling me all the time things are edible, which i do appreciate, but what am i going to do with thousands of plants that are outrageously abundant, while i am trying to grow the few extremely rare plants that we humans like.
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Dan Boone wrote:
Hugo Morvan wrote:My friend is telling me all the time things are edible, which i do appreciate, but what am i going to do with thousands of plants that are outrageously abundant, while i am trying to grow the few extremely rare plants that we humans like.
Indeed. So many online resources report that a plant is "edible" but what I need with respect to wild plants is information about what is sweet and succulent and tender and tasty.
Gail Gardner @GrowMap
Small Business Marketing Strategist, lived on an organic farm in SE Oklahoma, but moved where I can plant more trees.
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Michael Jameson wrote:
Exactly my thoughts, very well said and I think this analogy is a useful framework for organizing ones thoughts. Thanks!
Bryant RedHawk wrote:Most excellent post Daron. Great analogies.
It has been my experience through experimentation that if I suggest a plant to the earth mother and she disagrees with my suggestion, that plant or those plants die.
If I am almost right, she lets them live but they will struggle all through their life.
If I get it right, my add in plants thrive and the microbiome increases in diversity as well.
I have several note books from each trial since I feel like each experiment should have ample time to present me with my findings. Most of these have many pages with a big red Fail! across them.
However I then add observations of why I think that one failed and if it was simply plant selection or if it may have been circumstances beyond the scope of the trial.
Normally I try to collect the unripe seed pods of all my trial plants just to keep them from spreading wildly, I want to do these trials in a controlled manner as much as possible.
Again, thanks for such a well thought out and presented post.
Redhawk
Cultivate abundance for people, plants and wildlife - Growing with Nature
Visit Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil
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List of Bryant RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads We love visitors, that's why we live in a secluded cabin deep in the woods. "Buzzard's Roost (Asnikiye Heca) Farm." Promoting permaculture to save our planet.
This is all just my opinion based on a flawed memory
Michael Jameson wrote:
My main observation, is that many plants will grow like "weeds" in a given area, the idea that all possible seeds, or even the best possible seeds for a given area are already in the seed bank is faulty...Clearly what was missing for them to spread and live wildly and happily was their seed in the seed bank. Now that they are present, they are apparently just as perfect for the area, with what I consider to be more benefit.
So yes, lets not be so anti weed, but lets leave some room for understanding their presence doesnt make them perfect. They are mostly just present.
Gail Gardner @GrowMap
Small Business Marketing Strategist, lived on an organic farm in SE Oklahoma, but moved where I can plant more trees.
Examine your lifestyle, multiply it by 7.7 billion other ego-monkeys with similar desires and query whether that global impact is conscionable.
Michael Jameson wrote:I have heard a lot of responses to folks who ask about weeds, with what I would call "weed shaming". By this I mean effectively challenging folks that its only by their own faulty understanding that any plant should be called a weed, and that clearly since the plant is growing there, it is the perfect plant and exactly what is needed to grow there.
My main observation, is that many plants will grow like "weeds" in a given area, the idea that all possible seeds, or even the best possible seeds for a given area are already in the seed bank is faulty.
In my area, I have any number of plants growing that are not at all nice to look at. They dont make me happy. What does make me happy are any number of wildflowers and herbs, be they poppies, lupines, borage, chives, artichokes, cardoons, and many others that after broadcasting once have naturalized and come back every year.
Clearly what was missing for them to spread and live wildly and happily was their seed in the seed bank. Now that they are present, they are apparently just as perfect for the area, with what I consider to be more benefit.
So yes, lets not be so anti weed, but lets leave some room for understanding their presence doesnt make them perfect. They are mostly just present.
NON ASSUMPSIT. I am by no means an expert at anything. Just a lucky guesser.
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” — Abraham Lincoln
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