Are You a Weed's Best Friend?

[digitS']

I've read that barring bugs and such, humans and our food plants are the most successful species on the planet. I'm not quite sure if I've got that right but we do make quite a team!

Yep. We've spread some of our plants from one end of the earth to the other and help billions upon billions of them grow each year.

Of course, we have spread our weeds around, too. The weeds were in my gardens before I ever got there - he says confidently. Well, they were! I've done quite a bit by "nearly" eliminating a few of them. Certainly, some "aren't any worse" than they once were . . .

Well, here is a weed that is either having a banner year (decade) or, just likes me :/. They aren't terrible things but there seems to more of them each year! What I think is that I've created a good environment for this weed by growing things like dahlias which create so much shade; it handles shade quite well. Secondly, it gets a very early start so "team garden" has trouble getting ahead of it. Finally, it blooms in the most nondescript way and sets seed ~ has too ~ and I can identify neither the blooms nor the seed!

It is so nondescript, it is called petty spurge (Euphorbia peplus):

Are you a weed's best friend?

Steve
we may have to wait for the photobucket gnomes to turn this cellphone photo in an upright position.

 

[dewdropsinwv]

MontyJ has been battling pig weed for YEARS ..... Its a nasty little weed and will spread like wild fire. We think we have the perfect plan on how to get rid of it..... do NOT let it go to seed. So we are out in the garden pulling weeds every other day.

 

[897tgigvib]

Weed pulling contest candidates?

 

[digitS']

That's right. There was a # of weeds that could be held in one hand, part to the contest.

They are feathery little things. I'm surprised that they can get above a foot tall. Surprised - when they suddenly "pop thru" a larger vegetable! Sneaky and hidden until -- there they are. Usually, they seem to make some kind of full growth completely under another plant. I suppose I'll find some of them sitting around on park benches playing dominoes at the end of the season . . .

You know Dew', that pigweed may have gotten the idea that Monty and you are after it if you are out there every other day. Me? I show up here and there, miles distant, sometimes even in my own front yard. There are probably historical references to my activities in Weed Journal archives.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

I'm sure that I'm a weeds best friend. I come home and discover them having a convention and family reunions all over my yard!

I have lots of that petty scourge, I mean spurge. And lots of interesting new varieties that I don't remember seeing before. But maybe that's because they have all reached a stage of maturity that they don't usually get to.

This weekend I am aiming to become a weeds worst enemy!!

 

[ducks4you]

I don't hate weeds like I used to. I have my personal lists of evil weeds, but the rest have their place. My chickens like to eat several weeds. I don't even consider dandelions weeds, anymore.

 

[vfem]

Oh goodness... I swear I've grown more chickweed then grass since I've gotten the chickens. Something about being devoured by ducks and chickens, makes it want to grow MORE!

 

[momofdrew]

Now you have to remember a weed is just a plant where you don't want it to grow...they are all mother natures children and we have to respect mother nature or she WILL get angry...
Have you ever noticed that weeds take on the look of the flower or vegetable it is growing near...so it is missed until it flowers and sets seed... smart little buggers

 

[digitS']

See, that's what I'm talking about, V!

We change the environment and one weed species flourishes.

The spurge is following me thru the gardens. In a different way, another species is doing something like that -- my traveling companion, Kentucky Blue Grass. I am carrying the seed on my shoes. The plants aren't the most terrible but they can become a "lawn" at the garden entrance but then fade in numbers as the distance increases. These are mown lawns but it is easy to see that there are KBG plants here and there that succeed in developing to maturity at about 2" in height.

Steve