Weeds - Friend or Foe?

Weeds... those little nuisances that seem to grow like magic anywhere, faster than anything productive, more healthy, more prolific. They should be eradicated at all costs! Or should they?


Learning more and more about nature has begun to alter my views on .. weeds. Perhaps they are not the incessant evil I have always believed. Perhaps they actually serve a purpose. Perhaps... they are good for the earth.


Nature, left to itself, will always seek a balance over time. When there are hills and valleys, the rain and wind weathers the hills and fills in the valleys to seek a balance. When a forest becomes overgrown the storms send lightening to start fires and remove the excess brush and seek balance. There are dozens or hundreds of these situations in nature where one force offsets the other to re-establish balance across all. This is nature's way of sustaining itself, keeping the planet healthy. It has worked from the beginning of the earth, generation after generation. It is only recently when man started altering this balance, that the earth suffers (but that is another blog post)


What part could weeds possibly play in some sort of master plan for maintaining balance? Consider the nature of weeds. They grow faster with fewer nutrients and less water than "productive" plants. They are hardy, resistant to disease and blight. They are unattractive to most bugs. They only real fame they seem to have is their ability to live in the harshest of conditions.


A related point to consider here is that nature resists barren soil. Any piece of ground left to nature will soon be covered with growth of some sort. Tilling the ground does not leave it in a natural state, since tilled soil is rarely found in nature. Aside from recently man made chemicals that are capable of truly killing a plot of land irreparably, any open piece of land will spring to life by itself.


Put the two thoughts together and... weeds suddenly serve a very important purpose. Weeds are in fact natures instrument for restoring life. The ability to grow in the harshest conditions match perfectly nature's need to restore life where life can barely exist. without weeds, nothing could grow in the barren ground and it would lay barren and lifeless indefinitely since "productive plants" cant grow in the conditions of the soil.


Now lets take a step further and ask... what is actually happening here. If land is barren and lifeless, how does the growth of weeds  restore the ability of productive plants to prosper? I am no biologist nor chemist, but what I do know is that life expands life. Weeds as they grow conduct all the normal processes that plants use to turn sunlight into usable energy. In essence plant life is natures solar energy plant. The energy in sunlight is used to create plant life, which then eventually dies to create mulch and compost, which give life to bugs and bacteria and fungus that gives nutrient and life to the soil.  Weeds are in fact the first step in this chain of restoring the ability to support life into the soil itself.


Another interesting point is that it is possible to tell the nature of the soil condition by which weeds grow in it. each weed prospers in a particular soil condition. not only this, but when that plant subsequently dies, it gives back to the soil that very thing that it lacked which encouraged the type of weed that grew. what a beautiful  cycle!


I have noticed just in the last 3 years that the weeds in our garden are different each year. as the soil matures and gains health, the weed content encouraged changes to follow. this tells me that perhaps the weeds that are growing each year are exactly what is necessary to heal the ground! therefore, removing all weeds would prolong the healing process nature has in place, and although immediate gains might be seen, the long term health of the land suffers.


So there are benefits to weeds. They certainly produce organic material that builds the health of the soil. They provide cover from the harsh sun to make life more hospitable for the good bugs and worm and fungus. They provide shelter from the elements to new seedlings.  It would seem as though the weeds are actually a positive as long as they are kept in "balance".


One might say , as I have, that weeds take more from the soil than they produce. But is that really true? I read recently of an old experiment where a plant was grown in a protected tub of soil, and the soil was carefully weighed before, during, and after the plant's life.  After adjusting for water content, the weight of the plant was much greater than the loss of weight of the soil that produced it. Therefore the plant did not deplete the soil nearly as much as it created new energy to be redeposited in the soil as compost.  That is a fascinating thought... the plant CREATED more soil more then it consumed.  Now, I do not know if all plants have this ability, but I strongly suspect so.

 Hopefully I can research and experiment to prove this theory over time. Its difficult to accept the fact that weeds are a friend as much as a foe. I cant yet say that weeds should grow freely in a garden area, but at the same time, I can no longer say that weeds should be eradicated at all costs.


Stay tuned for the development of this theory.