A future in the weed business

My respect for farmers continues to grow, every time I pass a lush field in full bloom.

True, farmers provide the vegetables to put on our plates each evening. They raise the wheat for our breakfast cereal in the morning.

But my admiration stems from the weed-free fields. In reality, the fields may not be completely weed free, but at least the weeds are not towering over the plants -- unlike my garden.

My garden is a complete embarrassment, a sore point I must acknowledge every time I park my vehicle and glance into my back yard.

Since there is concrete evidence sitting in plain sight within my garden, I must admit that there are weeds in my garden which are taller than nearby, newly-planted fruit trees. These trees were not little seedlings, but half-grown trees with trunks which are now smaller than the weeds towering over them.

I debated about which to pull, the plant that was thriving or the plant that I really wanted to grow. The trees are still standing.

Part of the problem lies with my inconsistent weeding practices.

At the beginning of the gardening season, I'm out there pulling every little tiny possible weed, just waiting for the seedlings to sprout.

But in order to keep on top of my weed problem, I would have to be out there pulling weeds every day. I don't even floss every day much less pull weeds every day. (Sorry, Mrs. Dentist.)

Every day, I would tell myself that I need to get outside and weed the garden. Some days that would happen, other days it wouldn't. Then the family takes a vacation-day here, a day-out-of-town there and soon the garden is overrun. At some point, the situation reaches hopelessness.

After using up all my excuses (it's too hot outside, the bugs will bite me, I'll get lost and no one will find me until the first freeze), I usually make a lame attempt to find the "real" plants through the forest of weeds. Three wheel-barrows and one hour later, I step back to survey my work: I've cleared an approximate three-foot  by three-foot area.

I gave up for the day.

While some of my seeds have grown into full-fledged plants producing a few vegetables, my biggest, most abundant plants is split -- between the six-foot tall weeds and the six-foot wide volunteer tomato plants.

While I have little reluctance pulling the weeds, I do have a problem yanking the tomato plants, which are full of more produce than the plants I purchased and nurtured earlier this summer. True, there was more purchase than nurture involved in the tomato plants, but that's not the point.

The point is that I had my garden neatly designed with easy access to each plant. Then these other plants took over...and I let them.

While I do have a flexible schedule, I like to do other things than pull weeds only to throw them into the compost pile. Which brings me to another problem -- what to do with all the weeds.

It seems so wasteful to just keep throwing all these weeds away. Not only do I have more compost than I could ever use, but I'm throwing away my most abundant product.

It's not just that the weeds have taken over just the garden. It's a constant battle to keep the weeds out of flower beds, out of the parking area, out of the sidewalks. I could have written three novels if I added up all the time I've spent on my hands and knees pulling weeds, only to toss them away.

With my hands red from pulling hundreds of weeds and my knees brown from traipsing across the newly turned dirt, the inevitable thought crosses my mind: If you add up my lost time and the money spent on plants, I could have purchased just as many vegetables from the farmer's market or the store -- probably more.

But then I wouldn't have such a good compost pile.

-- Ronda Graff has tried a variety of methods to keep weeds out of her garden and has determined there is only one solution: Not planting a garden.