on Weeding

A lot has changed in my life... I'm no longer single, I no longer live in Africa or Cincinnati, I'm not legally a Connell anymore. But some things have stayed the same... I still like to play in the garden and a few "oak tree" friends have followed me into the marriage. 

Every Tuesday I visit with such a friend who owns a farm. (And by visit I mean we talk non-stop as we irrigate fields, build tomato cages and pull weeds.) She thanks me by filling a bucket full of veggies (which I have used to make cucumber relish, salsa verde, fried green tomatoes and bruschetta) but really, I do it to hang out with her. I only pretend to "do it for the veggies." 

Last Tuesday, we pulled weeds... lots and lots of weeds. (I've also pulled lots and lots of weeds from my new yard, but those are special weeds which will be blogged about in the future.) As we were pulling a tractor full of weeds (seriously, if you feel like you need more weeds in your life, become a farmer) I was learning things, a usual occurrence when I am working in the garden. Things about God, about myself and about where I'm supposed to be now. 

Here's the thing about weeds... they're actually plants. (I know, shocking!) Plants that have flowers, plants that reproduce in the usual plant like manner, plants that use chlorophyll to process sunlight. What makes a daffodil different than a daisy? Or a thistle different than a rose? ("This-tle!" she screams as she raises her fist in the air in memory of the battles fought and the victories both won and yet to be won.) Or crab grass different than ornamental grass?

"Plants give us fruit and vegetables!" you may shout, attempting to make your case for the superiority of plants over weeds. But I ask you this... if a volunteer tomato plant springs up in a row of watermelon, is it still a plant or has it become a weed? It is stealing nutrients from the watermelon plants, it is stealing water from the "purposely planted" plant, it is growing taller than the watermelon vine and shielding it from much needed sunlight... has the volunteer plant now become a weed? 

I say yes. 

It seems to me that the thing that makes a weed a weed is the fact that it's planted where it's not supposed to be planted. Sometimes this is fine... that day of weeding on the farm we came across a number of tomatillo plants that had "volunteered" in a row of zucchini that didn't survive the drought. We let those live since nothing else was trying to grow there. But the ornamental grass that was shading the cabbage and growing into the snap pea screen, we pulled up and I brought home and planted in a pot on my front porch. (Yes, I now have a "weed" growing in a pot on my front porch.)

So the insight that I offer today, as I am considering it on a daily basis, is where in my life am I planted and where am I just "being a weed?"