1. Attract More Pollinators!
You know the bees and hover flies and all of those other critters that pollinate and cross pollinate our food crops for us?! Well they need food too- and they prefer the “wild” stuff – especially Dandelions, Violets & Clover.
2.What’s Your Soil Like?
Soil testing is a must for healthy gardens & the weeds growing there can give you a heads up. Wild weeds can tell you whether your soil is too acidic, very fertile or too alkaline. Weeds like Stinging Nettle & Sorrels grow in highly acidic soils while plants like Chickweed prefer more fertile and rich soils. Dave’s Garden is a great resource for this kind of info.
3. Free Compost & Mulch
Using your early spring weeds as compost is the perfect way to offer your soil what it needs. Mulching with acid loving weeds like Wood Sorrel or Nettle offer your soil more alkalinity and vice, versa. Alkaline loving weeds will feed your garden with acidic organic matter as they rot. The trick here is to pull your weeds and use like mulch on top of your garden soil BEFORE they flower & go to seed… If you wait too long, you’ll be spreading your weedy friends all over the place:)
4. Companion Plants
Weeds like Ground Ivy, Dandelion & Dock make fantastic companion plants. Ground Ivy wards off cabbage worms, tomato hornworms and beetles. Plants like Dandelion and Dock who have deep long tap roots not only draw up minerals and nutrients from the deep lower crust of the earth for your plants, they also make it easier for the plants with more fragile shallow roots (tomatoes, greens), to dig deeper into the ground and access more moisture and nutrients.
I’m certainly not saying let these weeds take your whole garden over, but leave a handful here and there to lend a hand is DEFINITELY a good thing. Gentle World has some more great info of weed companions.
5. Free Medicine & Food
Nettle, Chickweed, Sweet Violet, Dandelion and Burdock are all growing in my garden and yard right now. And guess what? They are some of the most delicious of spring greens and are such powerful medicine! Nettle can be cooked like spinach whenever it’s called for, Chickweed, Violet and Dandelion greens can be eaten in salads, soups or stir fries, and Dandelion root and Burdock root can be eaten cooked in stir fries, casseroles and soups! Plus there is nothing more delicious as wild weed pesto!! Really you should try it!
Remember that no matter what you do with your back yard or garden weeds, weeds grow near you for a reason. They have a message, a medicine, a food, a purpose. They don’t grow on our planet for no good reason. So stay curious and see how they can serve you best…