Chickweed.

Tastes like raw corn on the cob.

Good in salads.

Grows fast.

Small white flowers.

Bright green.

Devil Plant!!!!

Yup, chickweed is our arch nemesis here at the farm. This plant looks innocent at first glance- weak stem and no pokey bits, pleasant color, not poisonous. But we learned fast that this is not a weed to ignore. It encroaches on any free ground space. It can take over a bed in no time at all, and winds its way around the pea stalks and tangles in with the baby carrots, leaving little space and light for them to grow. Waaaaah!

I'm choosing to write about chickweed because I was thinking about what I would tell people what I was doing on the farm all day. It's changed from what I did at the beginning, which was mostly pulling weeds and shoveling compost. Now the answer is: cultivation! Not to be confused with weeding, apparently. Cultivation is selectively picking out the weeds out of the beds. We use tools like the scuffle hoe, co-linear hoe, wire weeder, flame-thrower and our hands to help us. And we spend hours each days getting chickweed (and other weeds) out of the beds and into the duck or chicken pens. I eat a lot of it too.

Just thought our dear readers should know... if at any point from 9:15 am our time to 4 pm on a weekday you are wondering what we are up to, chances are we are pulling chickweed out of the garden! Now you know what it looks like! Or maybe we are doing our watering chores. This week I'm on upper field drip, and D-Rod is on lower drip. But that's another story for another day!