Weed Whacking

Come September, the Israeli landscape is parched, crunchy, yellowed, and prickly. It is as if nature is spent and experiencing symptoms of advanced old age; plants are skeletal, withered, grey, their stems fractured bones. They are exhausted, save for seeds that many will spread to ensure a future generation. For the next big event in this circle of life will be rain. And come Sukkot, we will be praying for it.

As a farmer (with my micro plot, can I call myself that?), I am deeply aware of this cycle and also of those prickly yellow weeds. And as I am an inattentive gardener, they have easily found a foothold and invaded my garden. They are predator and I am prey.

I saw them start life as tiny seedlings popping out of the ground and shrugged my shoulders, ignoring them unaware of their innate power. Now, some of them are taller than me and others have deep tap roots that must lead to China. 

It is not surprising that the weeds here as so invasive, sharp, rough, and hostile; this is, of course, the Middle East. Consider the soft mosses and alpine flowers of Switzerland, or the dreaded fluffy dandelions of North America - child’s play compared to their Israeli counterparts! In fact, some invasive plants here are not shriveled up but are fully alive and doing well, happily living off pure sunshine and my compost and mulch. 

There is Syrian mesquite, or ‘yanboot,’ as they call it in Hebrew. The golden hills and mountains are now dotted in green Syrian mesquite or Prosopsis farcta. It looks pretty, but on a closer look, it has thorns everywhere, right down to the base. Once it has a foothold, one would need armor to try to pull it out, plus lots of force. 

I researched this plant and to my horror learned that it is actually an underground tree that reaches a depth of 20 meters below, meaning the ‘little’ green thorns coming up are its branches and leaves. These leaves can spread across a kilometer, with each prickly baby belonging to the same mother mesquite. Before you blink, the babies are bushes. 

This yanboot is everywhere I look in my garden. I learned in permaculture that when you weed or trim back the garden, you should chop and drop, leaving the plant to decompose on the ground. Not so with yanboot. After it has been pulled out and dies, it turns reddish brown and is still as prickly as ever, so you basically need armor to pick it up. And if you touch it while wearing a sandal or flip flop, it will really hurt. Believe me, I know; a stroll through the garden is accompanied by the word ‘ouch.’

We had to buy heavy duty gloves that look ideal for trekking up Everest and when I am wearing these, I feel like I can conquer a young yanboot or two. As for the large ones, I wear the gloves and clip them at the base, making peace with the fact that they are there for good, part of an underground tree that surely starts in China. Yes, by cutting it back, I am simply fortifying it but at least I can’t see it until it rears its prickly head again. 

My other archenemy these days is the squirting cucumber or Ecballium elaterium. This plant is alive and well in my garden despite the heat and drought. When it first popped up with its greyish-green downy leaves, I thought it was pretty and left it to grow, enjoying its yellow flowers. But then it grew invaded my zucchini, and my carrots and my tomatoes. That was the signal that it had to go. I took out my shears and cut. 

With great force, a benign little ‘cucumber’ shot out a smelly, liquid mass of seed right into my eyes. I felt like I was in a scene from a horror movie. “Arghhhh,” I screamed, wiping my face. It happened again and again, and it burned a bit as well as stank. 

Its nastiness simply made me more determined. I observed that it had green pods that exploded upon impact. If I cut it at the base and ever so gently move the cut stems aside with the clippers, it does not explode. I have had a few mishaps but have learned my lesson the hard way. I since read that it is poisonous, so beware.

My other adversary cannot attack me by exploding and it does not leave a trail to China. It looks to be a type of thistle. It is prickly from base to tip and on all its branches and even my Everest gloves cannot protect me from it. I cannot find out its name but there are fields of it standing high and proud just behind my garden. They look like zombies from the Night of the Living Dead and I imagine them leaving their shallow graves each night to stalk the fields, arms stiff as they rattle and sway. 

To remove this villain that was the size of a tree, I took out a saw and hacked and hewed at it, then carefully it chopped it into tiny pieces. Throwing the thorny parts into a garden bag was also precarious, but slowly, slowly, I chopped away, understanding that I would never let one of these reach menacing maturity again. 

And then there is the creeping, crawling green thing that looks like Bermuda grass. This squatter digs itself deep down then sends a network of thick, strong roots underground that pop up in the middle of an innocent, unsuspecting vegetable bed. It takes hold fast and furious like a dictator. Good luck to any seedling that wants to make its home in this neighborhood.

Getting rid of this grass requires sitting on the ground with a small shovel and digging away, trying to figure out which way the roots are traveling. It’s like reading a subway map except it is dirty, sweaty, mostly unfulfilling work. Yet, when you pull the entire rail system up and find the mother root, it is gratifying in an strange way. Usually, the grass wins. 

I weed and I whack and I often call it a day, understanding that I will soon have a ground cover of mesquite and creepy crawly grass. We don’t use pesticides in this garden so I will have to enter into some kind of peace process and live with them side by side – as long as we can stay on equal terms.