Now that planting weekend (or, as we say here, Derby weekend) is months gone by, the summer crops have begun to take their hold in the garden. So have the weeds, the opportunistic plants that move so quickly into cultivated soil. A lot of human energy has gone into getting rid of weeds from the garden. From hand weeding to scuffle hoes to chemical herbicides to genetically modified crops, humans have their ways of getting the better of weeds. Usually though, it seems like weeds are getting the better of us, taking over a garden in a matter of weeks.
Most subjectively, a weed might be defined as something that is botanically undesirable in a place. The gardener gets to decide what is and isn’t a weed. Sometimes young maple seedlings or old volunteer tomatoes become weeds if they make their way into your plot, although we don’t ordinarily consider those plants to be weeds. Maybe you’re fond of the taste of lamb’s quarters or the beauty of annual fleabane and prefer to leave those plants be, so long as they’re not outcompeting your vegetables. Knowing more about the weeds that grow in your garden, in your yard, between the cracks of the sidewalk, along the curb of a city road, or in the neighborhood park will help you decide for yourself what makes a weed.
Pat Haragan is a botanist who specializes in the agricultural weeds of Kentucky. Haragan has been studying plants since 1973. Before finding agricultural botany, she had been fascinated with wild and rare native plants.
“I was totally ignoring the plants growing at my feet,” said Haragan about the weeds she now studies. “There’s a value to these plants that a lot of people thought were lowly.”
Haragan’s discovery of agricultural botany led her to Kentucky, a commonwealth known for its deep-rooted agricultural tradition.
“There was work to be done – contributions to be made,” said Haragan.
Haragan is the author of “Weeds of Kentucky and Adjacent States: A Field Guide,” which she wrote after many years as curator of the University of Kentucky Herbarium. As curator, she spent time traveling the state, walking through fields and pastures, and talking with farmers about their weeds. She was able to develop relationships with farmers, using their horticultural expertise to enhance her research.
“Farmers would call me and say that they had a new weed in their soybean field,” said Haragan.
Back in June, Haragan and I spent a morning botanizing around the city, and took note of some common weeds of the area. She helped clear up the difficulty of the subjective definition of a weed. Ecologically speaking, weeds are the first plants to move into a disturbed habitat, whether that disturbance comes from a fallen tree, a volcanic eruption, the building of a new road, or the plowing of a piece of land. The weeds from the latter disturbed habitat are those she knows best, and those that tend to be found just about everywhere. Here are some of the common weeds we found on our walk. It should be noted that the term “weed” is used here with great affection.
Yellow Woodsorrel
You could easily mistake this weed for clover, but it is altogether different. It has several leaves, each with three leaflets, similar to clover. My grandmother knows it as sour grass and a friend remembers it from childhood as the pickle plant. I like to call it wild sorrel, which seems to be the way with weeds, this one in particular. Their names are so tied to the humans disturbing the land where they grow. “Sour” and “pickle” describe this plant well because its leaves, flowers, and, in particular, its seed pods all taste that way. The seed pods resemble okra. People might call it wild okra in some places. Yellow woodsorrel grows in gardens and in the weedy parts of lawns. In Europe, Asia, and North America, it has been used as a treatment for cancer. Feel free to pick this yellow flower, and snack while you do so.
Dock
Dock is a relative of cultivated sorrel. Let dock grow tall and you’ll find flowers and seeds in the same pink-red clusters as you find on sorrel. After it flowers, the plant produces seeds that are surrounded by what looks like a dish or cup. Dock, like most of the weeds of North America, is native to Eurasia.
“Weeds are cosmopolitan,” said Haragan, noting the worldwide travel of many weeds.
Ladysthumb Smartweed
This weed is smart, which is to say that it will sting your mucous membranes if you eat it. At the end of its long skinny stem is a cluster of small pink flowers. Haragan found that this plant likes damp floodplains and moist soil, which explains why it might also thrive in a garden. Smartweed can be found in abundance throughout the lowlands of the Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky.
Hairy Galinsoga
While most weeds come from Eurasia, this common weed comes from Central America. Walk through a field of this plant and you might as well be walking through the cornfields of Mexico. Galinsoga has several delicate yellow and white flowers. As a ray flower, it’s also sometimes referred to as the Peruvian daisy.
Pineappleweed
It seems like every time I see this weed it’s growing between the cracks of a gravel road. Ride a bike or drive a car over these yellow cone-like flowers and you can smell its presence. It’ll tell you that you’re stepping on it with its far-out odor. It’s called pineappleweed for its smell, which is a strange one for Kentucky. Its smell is tropical like a pineapple, or even Banana Boat sunscreen. Despite its odor, its roots are North American. It originated in the western part of the United States and is currently making its way east, which is why we can find it in Kentucky. Native Americans used pineappleweed in traditional perfumes and insect repellants.
Virginia Pepperweed
As an agricultural botanist, Haragan has observed that certain weeds grow alongside certain crops, sometimes following a familial pattern. Many weeds are the wild relatives of domesticated plants and like to grow alongside one another, their evolutionary history visible in the garden plot. Virginia pepperweed is in the same family as kale, collards, mustard, radishes, turnips, broccoli, and rutabaga. That family, called brassicaceae, is an all-encompassing one in a garden. Not surprisingly, you can eat this plant. It probably tastes like all of those other plants, though on the spicier side, as indicated by the “pepper” in its name. Its young, tender leaves could be compared in flavor to that of a mustard or turnip green. In some places, it’s called bird seed or bird’s pepper. As the leaves are smaller, it could be thought of as a bird’s green. This plant grows everywhere – in gardens, pastures, roadsides, and along woodland edges.
Lamb’s Quarters
When young, lamb’s quarters is as succulent as beet greens and Swiss chard. All are in the same family, amaranthaceae, and can easily be mistaken for one another when they’re at their flowering stage. Collecting weed specimen for this article, Haragan and I moved toward what we thought looked like flowering lamb’s quarters (We should have known better; it’s too early in the season for that.) and instead found that it was an old garden bed of Swiss chard, overgrown and bolted with the spring’s summerlike temperatures. Lamb’s quarters is associated with the Inca of South America and much archaeological evidence exists to tell us that the Inca used lamb’s quarters in their cooking. The young leaves make a good cooking green and the mature dried seeds can be ground into a flour that resembles buckwheat. Lamb’s quarters holds a white dust on the underside of its leaves, which makes its silvery color stand out from the darker green foliage around it in a field. This weed is found nearly everywhere.
Horseweed
I was excited to ask about this weed because I’d seen it all over the place – in gardens around town, in a recently tilled field, and in many other environments. It almost looks like it’s supposed to be there. Horseweed grows well in both fallow and cultivated fields and has adapted to those areas by making itself unattractive, sticky, hairy, and unappetizing to grazing livestock. Horseweed is a native weed to the U.S.
Annual Fleabane
If I could name this weed, I’d call it wild daisy. The ray flowers look like small daisies and go well in a farmer’s bouquet.
Chicory
Hardy chicory loves the heavy disturbance of a roadside. All along Kentucky highways, chicory grows in abundance – almost a light blue line traced along either side of a long black road. It also makes its habitat in railroad beds. Though generally blue, it sometimes flowers pink and white. Chicory shows itself in the morning, when its flowers bloom. By the heat of the afternoon and evening, the flowers close and what remains is a tall, jagged stalk with a couple of bitter leaves. Those bitter leaves link this weed plant to its domesticated and cultivated cousins, endive and escarole. Chicory is also called coffee weed. Its bitter root can be roasted and ground and used as a coffee additive.
Where humans are, so are weeds. Our existence is linked, so long as we’re turning over soil. Take a look in your garden and see what’s growing, what’s followed you there.
Haragan is currently working on a new field guide that documents the trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, and wildflowers of the five major Olmsted Parks. The book is scheduled for release in the spring of 2013 by the University Press of Kentucky.
-Caroline Stephens
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