By JIMMY ROGERS

Courtesy of Jimmy Rogers
When I first began learning about garden plants, it surprised me how many non-native weeds share a common origin. During colonization and their successive waves of immigration, Europeans brought numerous plants to North America from their home countries. These settlers spread some of the weedy plants intentionally as forage for chickens or fodder for larger livestock. Other non-native plant species came mixed into agricultural grains or even trapped in pant cuffs and boot heels. Most of these plants are edible, so to a familiar hitchhiker might have been a welcome extra plate of greens during the early spring starving times, when winter food stores had run low and the first spring crops had yet to produce.
This year, I noticed hoary bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) as the first of the winter weeds to emerge. It forms a low, circular spray of stems and tiny leaves called a basal rosette. During favorable conditions, it puts up little white flowers and eventually seed pods that catapult their seeds in every direction when touched. Foragers prize bittercress as a salad green with a mildly peppery flavor. This makes sense, as it’s a brassica, and related to mustards, cabbages and kales.
Another couple of plants, henbit and purple dead nettle (both Lamium species) spread vigorously this time of year. They have the distinctive square stems that mark all mint relatives (the Lamiaceae family), and they tend to first creep along the ground and eventually grow about as tall as your ankle. Dead nettle more closely resembles culinary mint, with heart-shaped leaves, while henbit has rounded, toothy leaves. They will present tiny pink flowers at each leaf node in the spring, and they’re popular with bees of all kinds. Both plants are also edible as greens and are sometimes made into tea, as is common with many mints. Chickens like them, too, as you might have guessed from the name henbit.
I tend to notice two more plants a little later, perhaps in February. Birdeye speedwell (Veronica persica) spreads across the ground with dense tangles of tiny leaves and blooms with tiny blue flowers in the spring. Various types of chickweed (numerous species in the Caryophyllaceae family) have a similar appearance but bloom with tiny white flowers instead. Once again, both are popular greens for humans and chickens alike.
Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea), also known as ground ivy, resembles henbit and spreads linearly, invading mature stands of garden perennials as well as wild spaces. Unlike the other winter weeds, it is a perennial and can be difficult to fully remove once established. This qualifies it as an invasive species, and it can displace native species in the wild. I’ve had birds spread it to my garden, and I am quick to pull it after spotting it. On the plus side, it mixes into your salad just as well as the others.
Creeping Charlie aside, winter weeds do little harm to your garden. They are annuals with shallow roots, so they are extremely easy to rip from the ground. However, all that ripping does disturb the soil, which tells weed seeds that it’s time to grow, so you will soon have the same weeds coming up in the same place. This ruderal behavior is how the ecosystem detects bare, eroding soil and uses pioneer plants to protect the soil from washing away.
Instead, I recommend a more proactive and systematic approach that will eventually prevent weed germination. First, when working in your garden, do what you can to eliminate bare soil and soil disturbance, so that weeds will be less likely to germinate. Avoid tilling the soil or letting the soil lie bare for long periods. Use whole leaf litter or pine needles to cover your garden beds in the fall, especially after planting.
Next, as you’re designing garden beds, plan a layer of native ground cover species across each bed, alongside each of the taller plants. This will ensure your natives completely take over the beds and hold onto them throughout the growing season, preventing opportunistic weeds from germinating. I’m several years into my own native garden, and I rarely see weeds pop up in the middle of my beds because my native plants have claimed the ground as their own.
When deciding what and when to weed, there are two considerations. If you’re worried about seeds from a new weed spreading, try to pull it by the time you see flowers appear. If the plant is already fairly common in your garden, you might consider only cutting them short, rather than pulling up the roots, when they are blocking the light from reaching your other plants. Some weeds will need several cutbacks before they die, but cutting instead of pulling will reduce soil disturbance over time.
If you’re not yet certain which plants are which, consider the wait and see method. It can be hard to identify baby plants, and you want to avoid pulling a native volunteer by accident. In the winter, wood sorrel, violets, cranesbill geranium, golden alexanders, golden ragwort and columbine all push out fresh leaves that may not yet resemble their mature form. If I’m not sure what an emerging plant is, I often let a few weeks or months go by until it is larger and easier to identify.
Winter weeds can be frustrating, especially in new gardens, and often lead to a lot of weeding in spring. However, they deserve a second look before you pull them, or possibly a dash of balsamic vinaigrette if you do.