Spring has arrived and our yard is full of life again. With the blooming of everything we have planted also comes everything we did not plant. Weeding is a necessary and laborious practice. It is also rather monotonous and offers space for uninterrupted thought. While weeding recently I could not help but think about our relationship with the practice itself. If I were a 17th century French philosopher I might call this “Meditations on Weeding”.
Weeds Aren’t Real#
“Weed” is not a botanical or taxonomic category. It is contextual. A plant is only a weed if you don’t want it there. If a dandelion grows in the forest and no middle aged man is around to pull it out, is it a weed?1
We should distinguish between a weed and an invasive species as we sometimes use these words interchangeably. An invasive species is introduced to an environment and causes harm. They can outcompete native species, disrupting the ecosystem, and reduce biodiversity. Invasive species are weeds, but not all weeds are invasive.
One Must Imagine Sisyphus Weeding#
Every day it feels like more weeds pop up. There are weeds in our garden beds, flower beds, cracks in our concrete, the mortar of our brick walls. New weeds pop up in places where we just weeded, like a million little hydras.2
Yet, we keep trying. We have to. And it brings us joy despite the sweat, the dirt, and the feeling of futility. It feels like a constant act of love to the land around us.
Weeding as Decolonization#
I love games like Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress and Factorio. These are all games where you arrive at a “wild” place and must “improve” the land to extract value from it for your benefit. They uncritically adopt the assumptions of colonialism in their fundamental premises and gameplay.
This is not to denounce these games. As I said, I love them. But I can’t help and think about these colonial interactions with our land when we’re weeding. Are we not also coming to this “wild” place and “improving” the land by selectively removing undesirable plants?
I think this is often the case for your traditional American grass lawn. For our yard, however, we prioritize native life and try to only remove invasive species. Many invasive species in our area were introduced to America by European colonists. This context takes the act of weeding from extractive to restorative. Weeding becomes an act of decolonizing the land around us.