Posted by Holly at May 19th, 2008

Surely someone is thinking about how to manufacture vehicle fuel out of weeds. And, if not, then the scientists and innovators working on these projects have not spent sufficient time in a garden or even tiny plot of dirt including those that exist in the cracks of sidewalks. Weeds are everywhere and they are relentless.

I can see how people have a zen attachment to pulling them up and out. I do feel huge satisfaction when I get their roots to come up in one piece and when I finish a section and see how ordered it is, how the desired plants seem to breathe better and hold up their heads a little higher. I have to approach it in sections because if I look at the entirety of any area we have, let alone the farm as a whole, it is overwhelming and I immediately go inside and start to read my email. If, however, I just get down in there and start pulling, pretty soon I can let myself look around and see that something has been accomplished. This inspires me; for the next few minutes anyway.

Just that little section is so revealing. It just looks like dirt and weeds at the beginning but, quickly, the earthly inhabitants start scurrying as their homes are disturbed by all the yanking and rolling. Ants begin to flee; the longer bugs with the armor that looks like an anteater start utching themselves through displaced dirt to find new cover; bees that seem to have been silent suddenly start buzzing thrillingly close to my head. I believe the bees are checking out my activity to see if I pose any danger to them. There aren’t as many worms as I would have expected if ever I had thought about it. The ones that are there are usually very small and don’t make me jump. Now and then a big one shows up. I saw one that was about a half inch in diameter just yesterday. Worms and snakes probably have gotten a really bad rap but it works. They are slimy and seemingly without charm. Still, there is something remarkable about the ingenuity of their bodies to burrow and squirm.

Above my head, on the opposite end of the charm scale, the birds sing away, gentle bell tones on a still day. There is the occasional surprising sound. I looked up this morning to see who was hammering on one of the birdfeeder posts only to realize it was a blue jay pecking the floor of the feeder. It was loud. I thought it was the woodpecker we hear outside of our bedroom and, sometimes, in the chimney. That bird is so loud we did think it was someone hammering on the outside of the house.

The people-produced sounds are infrequent here compared to a city existence. Regularly, trucks from the rock quarry above us run up and down the road and, since the sound buffer of the berry plants is gone, we hear each one. I can tell if they are heading to or from the quarry and I can judge their distance from the turn to our driveway by the pitch of gears changing. It’s not unpleasant. Today I heard a plane overhead, very high and very loud. Seemed like it was traveling slowly, too, as the sound hung in the air.

Unfortunately, some of the weeds are quite beautiful. The one Jim calls retch and I call kvetch, is lacey with a tiny purple bloom that looks like a miniature iris. This one shows up as a circular weed – it’s amazing how many are circular – and sends out its runners from one middle point. Finding the middle often results in a whole bunch of the stuff de-entwining from its plant host, the one you want to grow without a weed companion. I think we should actually encourage kvetch growth in the working areas on the way to the barn where not much planting is going to occur and where the term hard-scrabble comes to mind. A carpet of lacey green with small purple iris-like blossoms might be just the thing there. I know, of course, it would take hold and be everywhere it isn’t already so that’s not a workable idea.

Another one is what I was pulling out this morning. It looks a lot like the alfalfa Jim grows up in the pastures for the horses. It’s a soft feeling leaf with a tenderly beautiful green color. Never mind that it is just everywhere in the freesias and tiger lilies and will eventually overtake them. I pulled out a lot of it this morning but I know it is only temporary as it is impossible to get the entire root system out.

Talk about roots, those really prickly weeds that are plague in the rose garden have thick, hard roots that hang on to the earth as if they were fending off an enemy. We put shade cloth down over the rose garden, cutting out holes for the rose plant. I could hardly believe the vigor of the weeds growing sideways under that cloth heading directly for the holes. The cloth had bulges. I spent a good two days pulling out those weeds – and a lot of other ones under there – only to go back the next day and have new bulges. How do they grow so fast?

That latter is what led me to think about them as fuel. I Googled weeds as fuel and discovered there is something called jatropha that is gaining a lot of attention as a biodiesel. The list of countries in which jatropha can grow is pretty big – nearly 110 and all over the place – Africa, Asia, North and South America and Australia. Puerto Rico is on the list. Maybe if they put together a huge jatropha industry they will be granted statehood. And, maybe, then they won’t want it.

Anyway, it has heartened me to know that there are solutions to our terrible crisis of the environment. A segment on a recent CBS Sunday Morning taught us that the LED has tremendous possibilities for a future lighted by solar energy.

None of this will be aided by my rigourous weeding except that it makes me think about it. Just like getting the job done one small weedable section at a time, I am reminded that I can help by recycling one more can, leaving off the lights one more hour, combining my trips and saving gas, and in a million other small ways that might just add up.

Weeds unite and help to power the world.