Weeds - the vegetable guerillas

One of the most interesting new books for anyone into gardening (or art, literature and science for that matter) is Richard Mabey’s "Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants." It has received glowing reviews for the way it portrays the crafty villains who ruin our gardens and fields. It points out that humans are largely responsible for weeds’ astonishing success and, as one reviewer put it, “If this is a battle, then the weeds are winning.”

Mabey’s vocabulary is a large part of the fun: weeds are “shape-shifters,” “vegetable guerillas,” and so on. I also like the way he touches on the beauty of quiet neglected landscapes, and our use of symbolism in naming weeds and our strange obsession with destroying them. He is at his most thoughtful when discussing our biological definition of weeds and where they might belong in the "ecological scheme of things."

My personal experience of the frustrations of trying to get rid of certain weeds in my own garden means I reserve my particular hatred for one garlic onion-like weed. Carefully sifting the soil for its tiny bulbs is a fool’s errand and now I simply remove all the contaminated soil. But I also know that the vast populations of butterflies and birds rely on many of these weeds, not the fragile exotics that populate so many Encino gardens.

If you like this book, Mabey is widely recognized as a preeminent nature writer – he has books out on birds, flora and bugs as well. They are all great reading.