WISDOM GROWS IN MY GARDEN by Paul Plotkin

Author:Paul Plotkin [Plotkin, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AIA Publishing
Published: 2023-04-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Everything Needs Context

One of my least favorite parts of gardening is weeding. No matter what I try, whether it is mulching or growing vegetables closer to each other, weeds will appear, and if not dealt with immediately, will rapidly grow and challenge the garden vegetables for space, nutrients, and water.

I constantly wonder why it is that the weeds arrive uninvited and with no “sponsor” but take hold, grow, and flourish. Why are they so much stronger and more aggressive than the plants that I chose and nurtured? Why do my plants seem to grow in slow motion, and weeds grow like a time-lapse video?

I thought perhaps they had some super growth-inducing DNA that gave them an edge over cultivated and desired plants, and I wondered why nature allowed them to exist, let alone be so dominant. I imagined them as predators, living off the resident population. I analogized them to criminals swooping in on good, hardworking citizens and stealing all their possessions and material goods. In short, weeds are the bad guys, and why are they here?

Imagine my shock when a little bit of research showed that everything I imagined about weeds was not only wrong but was, in fact, the opposite of what I imagined.

Weeds aren’t weeds because it is their nature to steal and exploit the local hosts. They are weeds because they are plants that grow faster than the plants already in the environment. In fact, some weeds, in a different context, are not weeds at all but are desirable.

In Canada after the snow melted, and the brown grass came back to life and grew a fertilizer-assisted green, it wasn’t long until dandelions began to sprout everywhere with their full plant structure in sight and bright yellow plants everywhere.

To me, they were a blight on the beautiful green grass that every suburban household toiled to display to their neighbors. Everyone, that is, who did not live in an Italian neighborhood. There I would see first-generation Italian women leaning over the dandelions not for extermination but for harvest. It turned out dandelions were a great source of food and beverages. Every part of the plant was edible, and some people made a coffee-like drink from the roots. Others made dandelion wine.

If I asked that population about the dandelions, I doubt they would have called them a weed. Rather it was an additional crop they could harvest that came as a bonus on their grass.

12. Everything needs to be judged in context.

Many years ago, when I contemplated becoming a rabbi, I read a popular and humorous novel about a young rabbi. It almost stopped me from applying to seminary. The main character was a young rabbi dealing with his congregation, and especially with most rabbis’ nemesis, the board of directors.

If American politics today looks fractious, angry, and ungovernable, put it on steroids and you’d only begin to see synagogue leadership at work. Often the only unifying aspect of a board of directors is the criticism of their rabbi.

In

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