Return of the Weed

Amongst the deluge of derisory name-calling at school, I remember being labelled a "weed". I always took it to mean one of a feeble or weak-willed disposition. It's taken me forty years to think about it but that's a curious colloquialism. Perhaps it is the sense of worthlessness. Of course, it's difficult to believe it these days given such a manly countenance but I've filled out a lot since then. But perhaps those cruel boys (and girls for that matter) knew more than I did. Sure, they weren't referring to a thuggish nature of couch grass or the smothering tendency of chickweed, and definitely not the unbearable plainness of pineapple mayweed, but perhaps they saw a delicate beauty that stood out from the crowd. 

Back from a week in Orkney, amongst the waist-high mass of the usual suspects, I'll be finding space to save some of the uninvited interlopers that perhaps remind me of surviving against the odds amongst much tougher species. I would never pull up a heartsease...

while I'll overlook the odd campion, corn chamomile, corn marigold, mallow and common fumitory...

And in this weed sanctuary, I am even nurturing some introduced weeds.Somewhere amongst this sea of self-seeded phacelia are six young blueberry bushes. But it's such a popular buzz with the pollinators that I can't bring myself to remove it, even though the garden is littered with the stuff. Not sure where this sentimental streak appeared from.

Much of a mulchness

2014	Snab	Brize
January	34.5	155.2
February	42.5	105.7
March	21.0	56.6
April	23.4	62.7
May	58.1	80.5

We finally got a bit of rain but finished the month with four scorching days in a row. So everything is going rampant, and that includes the dreaded chickweed. But after a few years of battling, I think I am getting the upper hand. 

Anything that doesn't like the competition or likes consistent available water is given a head start by growing through black plastic. Here you see my garlic, beyond that will come my celeriac, and then the strawberries. Onions and shallots get the same treatment. 

 

The edible-berry-hedge to the left (Amelanchier alnifolia and Aronia Melanocarpa, if you're asking) sits in a bed of bracken litter scavenged from the forests during the winter. (Well, what else is there to do?). Likewise the gooseberries, while the ever-expanding blueberry patch prefers pine needles. 

Any defiant chickweed that makes it through against the odds finds out out why it is so named and, along with an unfortunate assortment of slugs, wireworms and leatherjackets, succumbs to the resident pesticides.