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edible or interloper?

LavandeLavande Posts: 171

I have a suspicion this is a weed and I have seen it before but can't remember what I decided it was (it's the dark spots that I recognise).  It is thriving in one of my herb containers.  Does anyone recognise it?

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Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    Polygonum persicaria - aka Redshank - a weed of agricultural and recently disturbed land.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LavandeLavande Posts: 171

    Gosh how do you know these things!!  There is a field across the road (a very busy main road) which is planted each year with alternating vegetables - always pumpkins in autumn - I don't know what it is at the moment but I will see the men and their wives out with baskets harvesting it in a couple of months. Could that be the disturbed land?   Okay - that's another one to be whipped out this minute. 

    Thank you Dove

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    I grew up on a farm and when I got home from primary school at this time of year I joined the men out on the fields with a hoe, singling and weeding the rows of sugar beet to earn some pocket money - I developed quite a good eye for weeds that grow in arable fields - plus there was a pull-out poster from the Farmers Weekly pinned on the wall in the boot room. 

    Things you learn at that age stay with you.

    image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LavandeLavande Posts: 171

    That is fantastic - I'm sure it must have been hard work at the time but it sounds so exciting to me and what a great education while earning your pocket moneyimage 

    I worked in a sweet shop after school - and all I gained in that period  - is a load of fillingsimage

     

  • artjakartjak Posts: 4,167

    A colleague of mine grew up on a farm in Brittany and has, I think, pretty grim memories of spending every spare minute of her childhood picking stones up in the fields...and then the plough would bring more stones to the surface for next years pickings...image

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    Oh yes, I'd far rather single beet than pick stones - even if my soft little hands did get blisters.  


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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