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Channel: Eliza Margolin – FoodWorks
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Weeds are socially constructed

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The definition of a weed is a plant growing where it is not wanted. That’s all. This means that what is and is not a weed varies across time and place. In fact, a plant may simultaneously be considered a weed and not a weed by two different people (or even two competing opinions in one person’s mind!) observing it at the same time and in the same place.

A lot of my time these days is spent weeding, so I have plenty of opportunities to contemplate this. For instance, lamb’s quarters are edible plants that show up in my gardens a lot. When small, their leaves are really soft and taste kind of like fresh peas. I always take them out, but isn’t it weird to remove an edible plant from a place designed to… grow edible plants?

Last week, I removed some volunteer tomatoes from a bed that was planted with squash. There, they were weeds. I moved them to an adjacent bed that had been planted with cucumbers but that was still half empty. There, they are a crop. Five feet west, and they are no longer weeds (to be removed and thrown away), but a valuable source of food (to be cultivated, harvested, and eaten). Phrased that way, transplanting is like a miracle. It makes food out of waste with almost no effort!


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