Weeds: If you can't beat 'em ...

You'll have realized that massive applications of herbicide are not my approach to gardening. What organic gardening means to me, in 25 words or less: Weeding with a shovel. (Are you old enough to remember cereal-box contests?) Pokeweed and pigweed, bane of my existence. After johnson grass, that is. And ragweed! Less numerous are jimson weed and lamb's quarters.

But other common "weeds" I can easily live with. I don't mow the field north of the barn when the buttercups are in bloom: I think they're a lovely sight. I like the spreading violets and the white clover is actually good butterfly habitat. I tried to remove oxalis when I first came here, but that turned into my first "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" response, as it's so persistent, and actually pretty. I moved oxalis plants to ring the fountain, and let them grow alongside the back sidewalk. But last year, the funniest one came along: great mullein (Verbascum) in the front yard; and it so amused me, I left it. After all, it's grown in England for herbal remedies, or so I read, so I consider appropriate to herb gardens. This year Rudbeckia is popping up in that same yard, and as my mother loves daisy-type flowers, and these black-eyed susans are also good butterfly habitat plants, they're being left alone as well. I had tried moving them a couple of years ago, to make a patch out by the locust trees, but they didn't survive transplanting, so now I'll try letting them spread where they are.