bombs in bottles
What's the name for that thing where a colonial power invades by settling its own people in someone else's territory, heedless of treaties, boundaries, or whether someone else actually lives there? You know, the thing Europeans did to the Native Americans or Israel is doing to Palestine?
I'm doing it to my garden.
My side garden is devoted mostly to perennial herbs and native plants. The last ten feet, nearest the sidewalk, have trouble growing anything. Except quackgrass.
Quackgrass is a bitch to kill. It grows from rhizomes, so it spreads underground. New clumps will pop up yards from the last plant. It can regenerate from as little as an inch of rhizome. The rhizomes are tough asf, too. Rototilling is useless; the rhizomes just get wrapped around the blade.
Meanwhile, my front garden got taken over last year by nasturtiums. This was my fault. I didn't kill the volunteer seedlings. They were so cute! They have nice flowers! Pollinators like them! They smell and taste good! Surely the adorable little nasturtium seedlings were harmless, right?
Tropaleoum spp. are not your friend
Molly's Gardening Tip #1: Never underestimate your opponent.
Put enough of them in a garden, and nasturtiums will kill everything in their path. Nasturtiums are so committed to genocide they will shade out their own undergrowth. Nasturtiums will rot themselves from the bottom because fuck you for thinking you could grow leeks here too. Fuck you for thinking you could grow ANYTHING here. You can't even grow nasturtiums here. you rube. you fool. you absolute child.
Nasturtiums invented the concept of Manifest Destiny. Nasturtiums think the Book of Joshua is an instruction manual. Nasturtiums will enter the land they see before them and kill every man, woman, child, ox, ass, sheep, goat, and insurance adjuster they can find.
Nasturtiums are nature's murder machines, given the right conditions. Conditions like the ones I've been cultivating in the last ten feet of the side garden since fall.
Today, I transplanted six volunteer nasturtium seedlings to the newly-turned side garden. The colonization will continue until morale improves.
Fuck you, quackgrass.
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