Minnewaska Musings

By Paul Gremmels

In gardening, like everything else, you learn things over time. Like; a weed is only a plant that is growing where you don’t want it to grow. One of the first weeds I learned about and still battle today in my garden, is called “Common Purslane.” I used to hate this plant, but have recently developed a great amount of respect for it. Well, let’s call it a respectful hatred. It is important to note that purslane is a type of succulent. It took some time for me to understand why classifying a weed as a succulent was so important. You see, a succulent is like a starfish. As in, when the old time lobster fishermen off the coast of Maine found that starfish were fouling their traps and out-competing the lobsters for food, they would chop the starfish up and throw them overboard. Unknown to them in those early days, was that every little piece of chopped up starfish would become a whole new starfish. So too, with purslane.

As with the early lobster fishermen, I was chopping up the purslane in my garden rows with a hoe. I then hand picked amongst my vegetable plants, discarding the uprooted purslane on the ground nearby. Within a few days, there seemed to be five times as many purslane plants than before I started weeding. Indeed, “five times” might be an understatement.

What happens with a succulent like purslane, is that any part of its leaf, stem or root, can produce roots of its own and regenerate as a independent plant unit. I learned this prior to the internet, by doing some “test” plots of laying uprooted purslane on the garden soil and seeing what it does. With minimal soil contact and within a short period of time, the purslane, any minute part of it, will send down roots and begin reestablishing itself.

Sometimes, it is difficult to find the good in things. Purslane for instance. While crawling around on my hands and knees in the garden the other day, carefully pulling the purslane out by its roots and carefully placing it in my bucket, I noticed that the purslane chokes out most everything else, namely, its fellow weeds. It spreads itself out, flat across the soil and is relatively easy to pull up. So, if I am falling behind in my weeding chores, the purslane is keeping things in check for me. I’ve also been told that it is good to eat and contains many essential vitamins. I might give it a try someday. Plant a row of it in the garden. After all, if it’s in a row and marked with a stake, it’s no longer a weed.

–Paul Gremmels is an award-winning  freelance  writer, essayist and a columnist. He lives with his wife, Ann, in rural Pope County.  His column is published in the Pope County Tribune on the last week of each month.  He welcomes and responds to all correspondence. He can be contacted at:  gremmels@runestone.net