Take a look at what was a pile of bare rocks and naked dirt just a couple of months ago:

Weeds are soil bandaids!

Tearing up the soil can be destructive to plant, animal, fungal and bacterial life, yet nature was designed to fix disruptions. As our new land was being leveled and cleared, I looked at all the bare ground and thought, “what a mess! This can’t be good!” And here we are, a few months later, and plants are taking back over. There are various shrubs that came back from the roots, along with a wide variety of “weeds,” including ground cherries, yams and papaya – and even a volunteer pumpkin.

If I had the time right after clearing, I would have planted a lot of seeds on purpose. Still, there is a beautiful mess of useful plants here that will produce food without me even trying. Imagine if I had planted, though! This could have been a flower and herb garden, or a big old mound of pumpkins.

I’ll take a volunteers for now, though. I’ve been too busy building to do much else than watch nature re-cover herself.