Day 206, Year 8: No Weeds for Me
Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warmer
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Late this afternoon, I was working in the garden at Heather’s. Jonah was helping me get rid of the string that held the peas up last year. He loves to help out by using Heather’s pruning shears to cut things, so I try to find jobs for him. About that time, Heather was weeding the asparagus patch. It was overrun by Lamb’s Quarter (Chenopodium berlandieri), an edible weed. She pulled up the ‘weeds’ and then brought the batch to me announcing that this would be our first greens of the season. I invited Jonah to cut off the root ends and when we were done, he looked at me very seriously and asked what we were going to do with the weeds. I explained that this particular weed is one we can eat and that we were going to have it for dinner. He looked up at me with a very stern face and said, “Oma, I’m not going to eat weeds.” I just smiled and thought, “Maybe next year.” By the way, Lamb’s Quarter was once a cultivated crop in North America and still is in Mexico. But now it is just simply the world’s most prolific weed.
