Natural Notes: Milkweed or not a weed?
"Is that a weed? How about that one? Or that one??" This is a question I have heard countless times from plot renters at the Taylor Street Farms urban garden in Chicago. What exactly is a weed? And how does one know what is considered a weed and which is not? Are humans just arbitrarily biased against some plants, and subsequently do we just label things a weed when we don't like it? The confusion arises from the fact that there are actually two definitions of "weed" in this context (ignoring a deviant third definition, of course). One definition of a weed is any plant that is considered undesirable. Dandelions ( Taraxacum officinale ) are great examples. Ugh, who wants those ugly yellow flowers disrupting a lush green lawn? And they're impossible to get rid of it seems! This definition of a weed is inherently biased, as the very same plant could be considered by others as a prized botanical specimen. In many parts of Europe, for example, Dande