Farming Weeds

I am driven to distraction by the ease with which weeds flourish to the detriment of all else in my vege garden.

I have lost beans, beetroot, broccoli, carrots, corn, cucumbers, leeks, lettuces, mange tout, onions, pak choy, parsnips, peas, potatoes, pumpkins, raspberries, silver beet, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, zucchinis, and a host of herbs all to the strangling clutches of the vagrant weed.  I have even lost radishes, which is a major failure for a gardener.  Radishes tend to thrive on neglect; as long as the seeds have been sown, you can pretty much count on a crop.  Not for me.

It's not like the climate isn't suited to these plant species.  Our neighbours grow tomato plants like Californian redwoods, which are impossibly fecund with fruit.  We have friends whose backyard corn patches resemble sizable portions of Iowa.  And I continually fail to gain acceptance as a local, having never grown my own body weight in spuds.

The only edible plant that does flourish in my garden is the blackberry.  And for fifty weeks of the year they are naught but thorns, and an assortment of tennis balls, sparrows and neighbourhood kittens that strayed too near to ever fetch again.  They are the horticultural equivalent of razor wire.  And while the fruit is indescribably delicious, I always come away from a harvest looking like I've crawled across no man's land on the western front.  Consequently, I spend most of the year trying to eradicate them.

So how did our ancestors succeed in the basics of farming without being overrun with weeds?

Some theorise that the ancients tended to settle in areas that were fertile in a particular plant, where they just learned to live with its growing cycle.  Others suggest that a tribal narrative allowed them to draw conclusions about the recurrence of certain plants at favourite sojourns on their nomadic trails.  And yet others reckon a giant, black, omniscient obelisk taught them everything.

Personally, I think they must have farmed weeds.  They started off growing snozberries or something, but found their efforts continually thwarted by infestations of wheat, corn, or rice.  And so it was, lacking the sensibilities of any 19th century, middle class, fictional heroine, that they decided to lay down the foundations of civilisation on the more practical choice of fare.  The insuperable, ubiquitous weed.

Now if you will excuse me, I am off to harvest my first crop of dandelion leaves, oxalis tubers and onion weed.