There's a lot of hysteria based around apocalypse. Climate change is destructing our earth to the point where the term should be re-named Climate Crisis. Our food supply is threatened by mass pesticide use, companies like Monsanto, the bee crisis and a range of other factors most attributed to human (mis)use of land and resources. Could weeds be the answer?
Recently (well in October) we attended a "Weed Tour" as part of
In The Balance; Art for A Changing World, an exhibition hosted by the MCA with
Diego Bonetto,(Weedy Connection) friendly man and weed expert. We toured Sydney Park where Diego's advises us not to sample weeds from. It's history tells us it used to be an industrial dumping ground and may still have remains of this in its soil. He advises us that knowing your area's history and current use is an important step in foraging as well as knowing your weeds. What we were there to do was to engage in a discussion about weed and foraging ethics in general and gain identification skills to go on our own forage adventures. We find plantain (the miracle band-aid), hawksbeard, mallow, wild mustard, thistle, farmer's friend... and a host of other wild herbs and vegetables.
We don't look at any dandelions but they'd be there- they're everywhere and my favourite source of..everything! They have more beta-carotene than carrots, more potassium than bananas, more lecithin than soy, more iron than spinach and probably most things. Dandy is full of Vit. A, C, E, thiamine, ribofalvin, calcium, phsophorus and magnesium- hello magic healing plant?!
Diego's weedbook initiative lets you be friends with these weeds- elevate their probably low self esteem and reputation by befriending them. Here is dandelion- Taraxacum Officianlis on
FB.
It is amazing to open your eyes to the free, vitamin rich health foods growing by their own accord in bountiful numbers almost anywhere you could think. Weeds are pioneers- they grow between cracks in the concrete, in roof gutters (see above), along train tracks, in nature strips- they get trampled, removed, poisoned but they do not die. They re-seed, they spread and re-grow flourishing and offering nourishment if people would only SEE. We are ignoring our natural public resources- the biological beings that offer symbiosis but are thwarted, killed off by fear and ignorance.
Food does not need to incorporate poisonous fuel or oil to transport itself from source, to table to our insides. We need not support corrupt corporations that dominate and control our food supply and threaten nature's gift of biodiversity. Weeds cannot be owned but they should be utilised and given respect for the important role they play in ecosystems.
Patrick Jones of
Permapoesis and
Artist as Family turns the
issue of weeds back onto us:
As feral or non-indigenous Australians, we can well ask ourselves, are we beneficial organisms within our local environment? Do we retain resources equal to what we take out? Noxious weeds appear to just colonise and rob from the land. Are we such weeds?
This year, in our garden, we have hawk's beard, dandelion, farmer's friend, nettles, chickweed and warrigal greens growing- some pioneered on their own and some we have seeded ourselves for our own health and for the happiness of our bunny; our furry forager.
Stop complaining about the price of supermarket food, grown your own, join a community garden and have a forage!
