After we moved into our house ten years ago, I surveyed the small, overgrown vegetable garden the previous owners had left. New to California, the land of milk and honey, I pulled some of the weeds out and dropped some lettuce seeds in. Between the forthcoming winter rains and the reasonably decent soil, I figured salad was in our future.
I watched and sure enough, things grew. Not knowing which sprouts, if any, were lettuce I let it all grow. Lo and behold, I had raised a fresh batch of weeds with no lettuce in sight. I gave it time and, one day a few months later, I surveyed a crop of healthy, ugly-looking weeds and wondered what to do with the patch. Glancing down at my feet, I saw a lettuce plant that had somehow grown and was ready to be picked.
Years later, looking back, I'm amazed that that one plant made it. It's a survival-of-the-fittest world out there, with slugs and snails itching to chow down on fresh vegetables. There are any number of weeds able to out-compete the weaklings sown by man. Birds are raring to snack, and in some cases squirrels partake to. It's man-against-nature, and in our most recent year, a man-against-chicken activity.
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