Welcome To The September 2018 Issue Of Story Quilt!

 

Weeds

 

Mid summer gardening comes down to weeding. With the generous rainfall and hot humid weather this year in south-central Ontario, weeds grow amazingly fast.

But the hours spent alone with unwanted plants sets the mind to thinking. What is a weed? The plants we call weeds include thistles, dandelions, fox tail, golden rod, Queen Ann's lace and milk-weed plus plenty more. But these plants are pretty themselves. The Canada thistle has a beautiful leaf and a blue-purple flower, golden rod is spectacular in fall and dandelions shower the grass first with gorgeous yellow in spring. Kids love to pull the fox tail out of its stem and chew on the end. Monarch butterflies need the milk-weed plant which agricultural agents say is to be banned from all fields and Queen Ann's lace is so pretty the name speaks for itself. So what's the problem?

Control. That's the problem. We humans like to control things. We fight to control. We hate what we cannot control. If the plant spreads aggressively uncontrollably and gets into the flower beds we created so carefully in spring we call it a weed. Weed be gone. Farmers spray fields with herbicides to create perfect weed-free fields a glory to behold as the grain or corn matures. As a young lad I worked for a prairie farmer and cultivated summer-fallow in Manitoba unceasingly all summer before 2,4-D was invented. It was the thing to do. But weeds always come back either from seed or from root. Biology has taught them how to survive and they will still be here long after we're gone.

 

Ed Janzen