Gardening – Worthy weeds 

In the community garden at Whangaparāoa Community Hall, we decided to show the children how to plan for a small backyard food forest on an area cleared of rubbish and mulched heavily with wood chips. 

The key species would be avocado, feijoa and citrus, underplanted with blueberries and a range of herbs, groundcovers, and plants that some would consider to be weeds like sorrel, chickweed, Job’s tears and yacon. 

A weed is just a plant that someone thinks shouldn’t be in a particular place. Although they can be invasive, weeds play a key role in nature, transforming the dirt into rich fertile soil while sheltering it from the sun and protecting the microscopic organisms. Deep-rooted weeds mine nutrients from the dirt and stabilise the soil, helping to hold it in place during heavy rainfall.

Weeds also play an important role in the ecosystem, providing food and shelter for pollinating insects.

Rhizomes are branching underground stems, the buds of which grow aerial shoots. We selected turmeric and bananas, so that the horizontal roots would ensure soil stability.

We chose calendula, borage and an edging of rosemary and thyme. Coriander was added to produce seeds, while feverfew provided leaves for insect repellent and masses of flowers for pollen.

For fun we added Job’s tears, an ancient cereal grain which can grow to 1.8 metres. This ornamental grass with its wide arching stems produces strings of seeds that resemble beads which make excellent natural jewellery as they have a hole in the centre for passing thread through easily.

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is a species of perennial daisy with a crisp, juicy tuberous root, that we felt would provide an interesting eating experience for the children, as would the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) with its flowerheads for bees.

A group of scented pelargoniums provided both flowers and leaves for future fragrant tussie mussies. 

Orangeberry (Rubus penatlobus) produces a dense mat of miniature tough dark green leaves providing a visual feast. Unfortunately it is infertile and requires cross pollination with either raspberries or blackberries. Hopefully the alpine strawberries will provide the edible feast!

Weeds can tell you a lot about your garden. They would show how fertile the dirt was in our new food forest. Very acidic soil will produce sorrel with its bitter citrusy flavour – our little plant grew so well we could have made pots of sorrel sauce or soup! But the chickweed, which shows high levels of nitrogen, died.

The weeds, herbs and perennials in this garden will provide a diversity of species to help our little food forest flourish over the years.