Widow's weeds

“ You see, most weeds have grown in spite of everything, and have accommodated themselves to such unpleasant surroundings that when they find themselves in splendid surroundings, as in your garden soil, they begin to grow ‘with a vengeance.’”
“I know!” Mary Frances laughed.
“Well, we fairy folk want to help you as much as possible with your garden. I am going to tell you about—
Some Ways to Rid of Weeds
Of course, one of the best ways is to pull the weeds, never allowing them to go to seed. ”

“ As soon as a weed is seen, it should be pulled up, or Dutch-hoed off, and, if it have not a perennial root, straightway buried in the garden or used as a mulch round shrubs or herbaceous plants. In addition to its primary object, the mere pulling up of weeds, or hoeing off their heads, is of the utmost value in loosening the surface of the ground, and so checking evaporation and the conduction of heat. In fighting with weeds, garden flowers will be much assisted by deep cultivation, rich soil, and a provision of those general conditions which conduce to their health and vigour. ”

“ Clean."
"That's a good name for it," said Grandma. "I hope you'll always keep your lives clean from the weeds that children so often allow to grow up around them."
Grandma went back to the house, while the children set to work weeding the rest of the flower-bed. They were very careful not to pull up any of the flowers with the weeds. When they had finished, the flower-bed looked beautiful, cleared as it was of all weeds and grasses.
"I surely don't want any ugly weeds to grow in my garden, so I shall always listen to Bee Clean," said Joyce softly, as she walked slowly toward the house. ”

“ Said Luther: “Sin is like the beard, the oftener it is cut off, the more shaving seems to be necessary!”
Perennial weeds continue to live and bear seeds from year to year. Some weeds of this class, as the quack-grass, sow-thistle, and the wild morning-glory, multiply from buds on underground parts as well as by seeds. They are the hardest of all to destroy. As the leaves manufacture the food that nourishes roots, by preventing the leaves from growing, the roots will starve—the surest way to kill perennial weeds, tho often hard to carry out. ”

“ As it spreads along it tends to force out other plants.
"This weed, like the wild carrot, is really very lovely. Could such weeds be properly held down in small garden areas they would be very ornamental. I saw a little flower garden once, quite beautiful, with two small clumps, one of wild mustard and one of field daisy, among the other flowers.
"The seeds of the wild mustard, like those of the plantain and other weeds, get in with the grain seed and so cause constant trouble. Farmers feel that such weeds must be thoroughly gotten out of the fields. ”

“ They did not know that in gardens where the weeds thrive undisturbed, the vegetables never do. As to the neighbors, they came in occasionally to see what the women were doing, but shook their heads when they saw they were merely hoeing up weeds—said that weeds did no harm, and they might as well attempt to kill all the flies—they had been brought up among weeds, knew all about them, and “it was no use trying to get rid of them.” ”

“ Weeds everywhere; they thrive in the cornfield, they choke wheat in the field, they annoy the gardner, they thrive in the meadow, they spring up by the roadside, they encroach on the swamp, they damage the fleeces of sheep. The rapid increase in the number and variety of weeds should cause alarm. ”

“ All these are very easily eradicated when small but the red root is an exceedingly47 hard weed to pull once it has got a grip on the ground and it must be taken out root and all or it will come up again with not one but several stout stalks, and a more tenacious hold than ever on the soil; it is one of the weeds which are constantly eluding detection until they have gained several inches in height when they defy the hoe and cultivator and call for strenuous hand work! ”

“ Your and Merton's time's too valyble. When weeds are pulled from right in and around vegetables, the rest can stand without harm for a while, till you can get around with the hoe and cultivator. This weedin' out business is 'specially important in rainy weather, for it only hurts ground to hoe or work it in wet, showery days, and the weeds don't mind it a bit. Warm, sunny spells, when the soil's a little dry, is the time to kill weeds. ”

“ And the weeds in God's child-gardens are small at first, too. To begin with, there springs up the weed of telling a story that is not quite true. If it is not pulled up at once, soon it grows up into a big ugly lie weed. Other weeds—disobedience, selfishness, and unkindness—spring up around it; and soon the beautiful flower is hidden by the tall weeds. And when the Master of the Garden wants a lovely flower-child to do a kind deed for Him, He never thinks of choosing one that is surrounded by weeds."
"What a nice story!" exclaimed Joyce. "But it wasn't about a bee,
Grandma." ”

“ Among English weeds, the little bittercress that grows on dry walls and hedge-banks forms an excellent example of the same device. Village children love to touch the long, ripe, brown capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then jump away, half laughing, half terrified, when the mild-looking little plant goes off suddenly with a small bang and shoots its grains like a catapult point-blank in their faces. ”

“ Allow weeds to remain, and in an incredibly short time they will get such a start of the other plants in the bed that these will have received a check from which it will take them a long time to recover, when given an opportunity to do so by the removal of the enemy. There can be no compromise between weeds and flowering plants. One must give way to the other, and weeds will have it all their own way if given the ghost of a chance.
Every gardener should be the owner of a wheelbarrow, a hoe, a spade, an iron rake, a watering-pot, and a weeding-hook. ”

“ Many of our worst weeds are plants that have-escaped from cultivation, as the wild radish, which is troublesome in parts of New England; the wild carrot, which infests the fields in eastern New York; and the live-forever, which thrives and multiplies under the plow and harrow. In my section an annoying weed is abutilon, or velvet-leaf, also called "old maid," which has fallen from the grace of the garden and followed the plow afield. It will manage to mature its seeds if not allowed to start till midsummer. ”

“ Now, both Uncle Rufus and Agnes particularly showed Sammy which were the infant beets and which the weeds. It is a fact, however, that there are few garden plants grown for human consumption that do not have their counterpart among the noxious weeds.
The young beets, growing in scattered clumps in the row (for each seed-burr contains a number of seeds) , looked much like a certain weed of the lambs’-quarters variety; and this reddish-green weed pretty well covered the beet bed.
Tess and Dot had gone to a girls’ party at Mrs. ”

“ Earnest digging, liberal manuring, and scrupulous cleansing are the tasks that stand forward as of pre-eminent importance. Many weeds, groundsel especially, will now be coming into flower, and if allowed to seed will make enormous work later on. It is well, however, to remember—what few people do remember, because the fact has not been pressed upon their attention—that weeds of all kinds, so long as they are not in flower, are really useful as manure when dug into the soil. ”

“ Patrick had made a mistake; he had either taken up a weed for a verbena, or had potted a weed and verbena together, and the verbena had died early, for certain it was that my new seedling, the puzzling variety of an old species, was nothing but an ugly specimen of worthless sorrel. It died soon after. I was glad it did. Possibly scientific hot-house culture is not beneficial to weeds, but until it perished of itself I had not the heart to dig it up, and thus put a violent end to so many vain hopes and promising anticipations. ”

“ It was the wrecked weed that concerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea-weed, as he named them, which he carted to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him. ”

“ What have we more charming, for instance, than traveller’s joy (Clematis vitalba) , bryony, dogrose, or the large white bindweed? And as to some other weeds, which of our garden plants figure so largely in pictures as the foxglove, purple loosestrife (Lithrum salicaria) , the teasel, or the dock? Nevertheless, they are weeds, and as such, are entirely out of place on the garden or farm. Robbers and usurpers are they, to be ignominiously decapitated or uprooted, and consigned to the rubbish-heap or the flames.
Nature, it must be remembered, never sleeps ”

“ A plant like the pigweed, which lives only one year, is called an annual and is one of the easiest weeds to destroy. [Pg 70] Mustard, plantain, chess, dodder, cockle, crab grass, and Jimson weed are a few of our most disagreeable annual weeds.
The best time to kill any weed is when it is very small; therefore the ground in early spring should be constantly stirred in order to kill the young weeds before they grow to be strong and hardy. ”

“ Weeds defy the latest and the earliest frosts, grow with their roots in the air; and cut down, spring up, grow on, blossoming and ripening their seed in creeping stealth and ever unscathed by blight; and so flourish in spite of all unkindliness of man or stress of nature, that the husbandman wishes that they might by some freak of demand become the useful plants, his present crop the undesired ones. ”

“ Still, with weeds, be they ever so beautiful, ever so interesting, must the gardener wage eternal war. Nature, like the artist she is, abhors bare earth as much as she abhors a vacuum, and, where she sees a piece of ground uncovered, there she sows her seeds or projects her roots. One of the best ways of keeping weeds within bounds, therefore, is to have as little earth as possible uncovered by plants, for then weeds have small chance of entry and smaller chance of development. ”

“ A weed that grew up between the cobbles, crouching under the hoofs of horses and the tramp of men, and who was pulled up and thrown aside and still lived on and flourished in various ways, and all with that tenacity of purpose and buoyancy of spirit which distinguishes all weeds and which never by any possibility marks a better quality of plant, vegetable or animal. ”

“ Perhaps some of you have gardens or grass plots at your own homes. If you see some dandelions in the lawn, or groundsel among the flowers or vegetables in the garden beds, you say, "Those weeds must be pulled up." You call the Dandelion and the Groundsel weeds, but they have flowers all the same; the Dandelion is perhaps one of the most lovely yellow flowers that we have.
They are weeds certainly in your lawn or garden beds, for they ought not to be there. Weeds are plants in the wrong place. By and by, in the farmer's fields, we shall see many pretty flowers which he calls weeds. ”

“ See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is broken up. It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start. Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary wear. The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only. ”

“ She dropped her hoe and came over toward him.
“Whut you doin' with them—those weeds?”
“Going to plant 'em in our garden.” Hale had got a theory from a garden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants were good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but June gave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she snatched the weeds from him and threw them over the fence.
“Why, June!”
“Not in MY garden. Them's stagger-weeds—they kill cows,” and she went off again. ”

“ In other cases by the great vitality of their seeds. Shepherd's purse, mustard, purslane, pigeon-grass, pigweeds, pepper-grass, May weed, evening primrose, smart weed, narrow-leaved dock, two chick-weeds survive when buried in the soil thirty years at least, as I have found by actual test. ”

“ The weed nuisance is still bitterly complained of by the Irish registrar-general, who urges the passing of a bill to compel the destruction of weeds with winged seeds before they are allowed to ripen. ”

“ I cannot help, therefore, observing how extremely absurd it is to endeavour to form clean and good pasturage under a crop hat gives as much protection to every noxious weed as to the young grass itself. Weeds are of two descriptions, and each requires a very different mode of extermination: thus, if annual, as the Charlock and Poppy, they will flower among the corn, and the seeds will ripen and drop before harvest, and be ready to vegetate as soon as the corn is removed ”

“ It is safe to say that during the summer no weeds should be allowed to grow in the vineyard, and, as long as any of them are left, the soil should, if possible, be cultivated. Every weed acts like a chimney for the moisture in the soil, which it sucks out to the detriment of the vine, while weeds which grow in among the branches of the vines will also seriously interfere with the picking of the grapes. ”

“ Side by side with the seed, and from the same soil, the heart, spring up thorns and weeds, which try to choke the seed. And the little seed has to struggle hard for its life; if it does not choke the [Pg 27] weeds, the weeds will choke it. What must we do with the weeds?”
“Cut them down,” said the children.
“Yes. We must fight with our faults, and not let one, however small, be neglected, or it will soon cover the garden; for all weeds grow fast. But the other enemies, the heat and the fowls, cannot be destroyed. ”