Making Peace with Field Bind Weed

2^nd Use from Weed to Crop

My father-in-law told me the first time he looked at my newly purchased house that, “if bind weed was a crop I would be rich.” He was right, the stuff was everywhere. It was a constant losing battle to try and manage. Most interestingly I was hit with a bit of anxiety when I went to out into the garden because I hated bindweed. I was investing in hate; this was a bad energy so:

I had to make peace with the bindweed or suffer. I do not think that we are destine to suffer.

I was already past the pretty white flowers stage because of the way the vines of the plant would encase and choke everything I was trying to grow. So I had to change my criteria. I did this through research; know thy enemy and they may become your friend. Anyway I started by looking at the vigor of the plant as impressive rather than oppressive. The plant obviously belongs here if it is thriving in the environment. I started marveling at how it could search for light under landscape fabric and mulch. I have observed shoots as much as 10’ from the mother plant. I thought about how prolific this plant is, being able to grow not only from seed but stem and root nodes that could be found every couple of inches in both tissues. This means if you were to rotary till or try and hack it to death with a hoe, it would grow a clone plant from the many segments created. And lastly, that the roots go down to a recorded 30 feet deep when the conditions are right; and again if you leave any root segment in the soil it can create another new plants.

So if I can’t beat it, then how can I use it? If in fact the roots do go down 30’ to the parent rock level, and since plants are systemic due to there vascular and food making systems, this means the roots will bring up minerals or nutrients from deep below to the surface. These minerals and nutrients can be harvested from the green vines above grade, composted to prevent any regeneration, and then used to add nutrients to the soil to add vitality to the plants you intend to grow.

All this said, I must confess that this is pure conjecture, but it works for me because now,” I am not weeding - I am harvesting.”

I am so over the pretty flower

This is the area I harvested the bind weed from, it was previously harvest three weeks ago.

The harvest was about one and a half bushels of bindweed and it took 2 hrs. It was worth it, right?