A Farm of Weeds

I live on a farm called "Bhoomi"-or land. I called it Bhoomi because thats all it was-dry, barren, gravelly, rocky, piece of earth-hard,uncompromising, and hostile to supporting life forms-all life forms-or almost all life forms, brown without a touch of green.


I now live on a farm that grows weeds-well, mostly weeds. These are the most important, useful, profuse, and beautiful occupants of this land.They are also entirely non-demanding, non-fussy, friendly, and social. It is only this season that I have come to really appreciate their invaluable role on the ecology and the habitat at Bhoomi-which now supports a thriving residential population of butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, ants, spiders, daddylonglegs, grasshoppers, bees,termites,ladybugs and many other kinds of bugs that I dont know names of, and ofcourse scorpions,snakes,frogs,all kinds of pedes-milipedes, centipedes, and a zillion singing cicadas, orchestra of birds galore-little dazzling sunbirds in inky blue black, flashy kingfishers, busy woodpeckers, long tailed drongos, hooting owls, bright green bee-catchers, and several birds of prey that shriek out at night to startle the wits out of a person. And then there are more rewards in a farm of weeds-under the weeds the soil is darker, softer. There are earth worms- lots of them everywhere you dig-a subtarranean population, working away, and thriving.


The field of weeds is now also a meadow of flowers-all weed flowers-or wild flowers-I guess the same thing! Its also a field of food-I just have to recognise the edible weeds-flavorful, nutritious and entirely organic! So far I have learnt to recognise six.


With the late rains of this season, I have been busy- very busy, digging pits, expanding my fledgling orchard, and clearing weeds! I work long hours of a labourer,digging, cutting, clearing-clearing the "touch-me-nots" is rough- these guys mean business-they cut you up real mean, deep-a reasonable price to pay for interfering with nature's way.

It is with amusement that I realise the enormous effort required to plan food sustainablity for a single family of humans-and the ease with which nature provides and sustains all the rest.