Last Hour of Polk Plant

The deed is done. The toxic pokeweed plant has been removed from the rain garden. While I was at it I also removed a bunch of other weeds from the rain garden and the vegetable garden in front of the house. By using mulch I do not need to weed much but when I let it go, as I did the last few weeks, there is much to weed. I will need to get more mulch, wood chips from the city dump, for the bare spots and maybe some perennial plants and seeds for the rain garden empty spots, like mums for the fall.

“Weed and Seed” is the name of community based U.S Department of Justice program that aims to prevent, control, and reduce violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity in neighborhoods. I also like the name of the program and heard about a lot of weeding of criminal element that was done from neighborhoods but did not hear much about the seeding. If one weeds but does not seed the weeds will just come back again.

It also reminds me of the war in Afghanistan. We seem to be good at weeding out the ‘enemy’ in certain areas but without planting seeds that grow and develop the territory goes back to the insurgents. The history of Afghanistan from the USA viewpoint seems to be a great weed and seed program that failed. We help the Afghans defeat the Russians but without planting any seeds of development the very Afghans we helped create our new enemy.

Sadly the same accusation of weeding but not seeding can be said of much of the US’s relationships with troubled countries. We are the world’s major exporters of weapons to weed, but do not live up to our obligation to seed. Weeding without seeding is not weed and seed.

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