Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 20, 2021

Are you growing weeds, or are you growing weed?

Genius.

Sing along with Basil: “Dandelion don’t tell no lies . . .”

Sounds like my yard for the last 20 years

It isn’t illegal where you’re at, eh, Rat?

I appreciate Rat’s new interest in agricolture.

As long as you keep it watered and mowed it just looks like lawn.

The way I look at it, a garden’s primary purpose is to grow weeds for composting; everything else is a by-product!

A weed is just a plant you don’t want somewhere…

“Il faut cultiver notre jardin.” —Voltaire

Translation of the above, from Candide , “One must cultivate one’s own garden.”

I kept having to pull roses from my weed patch.

If it causes too much bother, smoke it.

A weed is a plant that thrives where you don’t want it. A decorative plant is one that REFUSES to thrive where you want it (at least if I’m the gardener). I have tried over and over to get Spouse to accept that “thrive” is more important than “where I want it”. No success.

I’ve been tempted, but sadly if I do then their windy tendrils, blow-y about seeds and underground root mazes find their ways into the neighbor’s yards

and I’m not quite Republican enough to call that an entitlement of Ma Freedumb

Oddly enough, I intentionally maintain a small, flourishing weed patch. High fiber weeds, requiring a long digestion period, are exactly the diet my little vegan Mediterranean tortoise prefers and needs. (Fresh fruits and vegetables can actually make him sick if given as a regular diet.) I’ve had him since he hatched in October, 2007.

Rat ought to know weeds, he is the crabgrass in the lawn of life!

Why bother pulling weeds? Does your grass really has to be exactly 6 mm long and free of dandelions and stuff? Like a green billiard sheet?

Growing weeds (not weed) isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Many weeds are edible or useful in other ways. For example, chickweed is quite good. It doesn’t grow in America, but there’s a weed that people here absolutely hate, because it’s so hard to get rid of. It’s called “northern dock”, and the young leaves are good in salads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumex_longifolius). Clover can be used to make tea, and dandelion flowers are used to make wine. And let’s not forget the medicinal value of many weeds.

https://practicalselfreliance.com/edible-weeds/

ALL PLANTS MATTER.

Those aren’t weeds. They’re flowers.

It would save a lot of work.

My garden is sandy dirt. It’s a desert oasis.

Some weeds, like dandelions, are pretty

Goat should be glad Rat has found an interest other than exploiting others for money. So what if it involves weeds?

Gallagher had it right: “If you water and fertilize a plant, and it dies, it’s a flower. If you pull it out, and it grows back, IT’S A WEED!”

The definition of a weed is any plant growing where you don’t want it, therefore Rat has no weeds.

well there really is no such thing as a weed. A weed is simpley any plant growing where you do not want it. So if i have a sunflower in my rose garden that sunflower is a weed.

Miss Peach called. Arthur wants his weed patch back.

“Weeds”?

Observe a three or four year old child discovering a dandelion for the first time; either the dazzling yellow bloom, or the ball of downy seeds. You’d think they’d discovered the rarest treasure in all the world.

What most people call weeds, I call indigenous species. For me, a weed is a plant that I don’t want growing in that specific spot, and sometimes means a rose bush that I don’t want my dogs to get tangled in.

Wouldn’t Goat just eat them? Along with pretty much everything else growing in the yard?

Keeps a garden simple……

When I lived in Arizona, I had a natural lanscaped lawn. Anything that had a flower on it was definitely a weed or a cactus.

Those are some really short sunflowers I’m growing. A lot of work, but it’s worth it.

I live in Colorado, so I could legally drop the s from weeds.

Anyone remember the cartoonist that did a comic about giving weeds instead of flowers? The gag was that weeds are much more honest in expressing the giver’s true emotions toward the recipient. (I could see Nick @Galifianakis using this.)

What a choice of “flower” mouse. So inspiring.

I have large chunks of my garden set aside for wild plants like milkweed, food for Monarch butterflies. These plants seem to be the only things the deer and groundhogs won’t destroy.

You call it a “weed”, I call it a “hardy perennial”.

Rat is the weed we’d rather not have to deal with.

Works for me! :D

Call them native plants.

♪ ♫ He likes weeds ♪ ♫

Hey, weeds are just a label. They have stems and green leaves just like any other plant, and they’re quite hardy and easy to cultivate. Most have small cute flowers. The yellow flowers from the Dandy lions in my yard on a spring morning are breath taking.

i think the weeds are growing by them self (that is a bad greden)

if i had a garden, it would be full of weeds

Some weeds are tasty. Purslane, dandelions, oxalis…

That’s funny!

I do, Rat. Growing weeds is actually a smart, sane, sustainable ploy!

If you’re trying to grow it, then it’s not a weed.

I bet Rat’s growing varieties of weed. Hence, weeds.

Not surprised that Rat grows weed.

Weeds are flowers with a greater will to live.