My Favourite Window

April 1, 2011

Weeding

One year's seeding,
Seven year's weeding.

There it is, in my new wheelbarrow: that great weedy dock that grew greedily amongst the roses, thriving as they have, on  their spring dressing of sheep manure.
I have discovered that I don't need to fret about the rooty persistence of docks. I allow them free reign in some wild places, but when I am ready to dispense with them, I dig out the younger ones, then commit to removing all foliage, from the deeper rooted ones as it appears. It takes about three months of this treatment to kill a dock (and incidentally a pampas clump or willow stump).
Joining the dock in my barrow is shepherd's purse and puha.
All of these plants have their own distinctive qualities, medicinal and vegetable, but it was time to take them out of the rose bed.

Dock  Rumex obtusifolius
Shepherd's Purse  Capsella bursa-pastoris
Puha, Sow thistle  Sonchus spp (possibly asper)

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