Weed Appreciation Day
About Weed Appreciation Day
When is Weed Appreciation Day? This holiday is always celebrated on March 28
Today is Weed Appreciation Day, a March 28 holiday. It’s a day to go out and hug the common weeds found in your lawn or garden. Why appreciate weeds, you ask? What possible good can they be? Read on………..
Common weeds do offer some benefits. They provide the very oxygen that you breathe. Weeds take in the carbon dioxide that you exhale. Many weeds offer food and shelter for birds and wildlife. And they make good garden compost if they have not yet produced seeds.
Take some time today, to hug your weeds, water your weeds, fertilize them, or do whatever you prefer to do to enjoy them. As for me, I’m going to celebrate this special day by pulling them from my garden.
We hope you and your weeds have a very happy Weed Appreciation Day!
Definition of a Weed
A weed is any plant not in a place where you want it to be. Even edible, medicinal, herbal plants, and even flowers, are weeds if you don’t want them where they pop up. Dandelions are a perfect example. In the lawn dandelions are weeds. Dandelions are edible and are used in salads and for dandelion wine.
For example:
- Flowers can make their way into your vegetable garden where you pull them out, like any other weed.
- Even a common flower, vegetable, or herb would be considered a weed, in the cracks of your driveway or sidewalk.
- Only a child considers dandelions in the lawn, to be anything other than a weed.
- I do not know a single person who likes ragweed in any way, shape, or form.
- Queen Anne’s Lace is a popular flower in English gardens. In the USA however, it is considered an invasive weed.
- Has anyone found a use for Tumbleweed?
Now, consider the reverse…..
- Imagine you are lost in the woods for days with no food or water. You come upon purslane, an otherwise common and pesky weed in the vegetable garden. This leafy, nutritious green is quite edible and may help to save your life.
- If you love your salad greens, then the tender inner leaves of dandelion plants belong in your fresh garden salad. It does not belong in your lawn. It may belong in your garden as a salad green.
- Dandelions are certainly not a weed if you are a vintner and want to make dandelion wine.
- Weeds offer food and shelter to birds and wildlife.
- Many weeds produce an attractive flower.
- Some weeds offer actual or potential medicinal value. Imagine if an obnoxious weed in your flower garden is someday identified as a cure for cancer or the common cold.
How to Celebrate Weed Appreciation Day
It is very easy to celebrate this food holiday:
- Have a dandelion or purslane salad.
- Drink some dandelion wine.
- Make a salad with dandelions and/or purslane.
- Explore what other weeds are edible. Then, give them a try.
Thought for Today
“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.” – – Ralph Waldo Emerson
History and Origin of Weed Appreciation Day
Our research did not find the creator or the origin of this day. It appears to be very recent, around 2015.
There is so much about this day that we would like to ask the creator…. like why is it celebrated in the middle of March, which is before the gardening season begins in many parts of the country? Perhaps, it is because we can better appreciate weeds in the month of march when they are not choking out our garden plants.
While many websites have begun calling this National Weed Appreciation Day, neither congress nor the president have made a proclamation. We are so grateful the “National” tag was not formally applied to the title of this special day. Had the president or congress considered this, the ensuing debate would have found them lost in the weeds. And, so many other special days are far more worthy of a Presidential proclamation or act of congress.
Learn how to grow dandelions as a salad green.
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