It’s just turnip

I walk along a track

It sheds gold dust in the wind

Coating my jacket

Powdering my pants

A weed by any other name

Turnip, a common pest

Yet it makes my insides smile to look at it

Winding through fields where the flowers have begun to bloom

Spring is approaching

And I am watching the ground change colour daily

*it’s a weed and a pest and I’m not supposed to like it but I really do. It wreathes the sides of tracks and roads in waist high golden glory.

“It fills entire paddocks and renders them useless” grumbles my husband

I don’t care, I love it

And its season means spring is almost here. On the ground are Billy Buttons and Purple Pea and loads of other wildflowers ready to burst open as soon as these cold winds finally die down. Flowers don’t know what date, but they have a feeling of exuberance that can’t be contained once it is warmer. I know the feeling, I really cannot wait this year as the winter has felt colder and longer than in other years. Happy dance this morning, not long now.

🕊

18 thoughts on “It’s just turnip

  1. Like dandelions here, little yellow flowers that wash across fields in a sunny wave. The cynical and the pedestrian complain that they ‘wreck the yard.’ As if uniform grass is more appealing than a natural garden.

    • Dandelions feed the bees and so does turnip – it’s a bee feast! That plus beauty equals worthy – plus it probably adds some nutrient or other to the soil. Nature isn’t stupid. I love dandelions.

  2. Like your other readers, I think of all ‘weeds’ as wildflowers and prefer to see a field of these rather than cultivated flowers and plants. My garden is completely wild, apart from a rough patch of lawn/moss in the middle. Nothing else has been planted, just things that have seeded themselves. I like it that way. And it’s food for wildlife, especially the bees and butterflies. I had to Google turnips because I only know them as a vegetable! I discovered that they were considered weeds. I think that species must be different from the turnips we can eat. I’ve not heard of Billy Buttons and Purple Peas – I’m going to look those up, too. Lovely post, Kate … Ellie x 🦢

    • Hi Ellie, half my herb patch reseeds itself every year – which is lovely and I also had for years some cherry tomatoes that would do the same thing. I’m not sure if they will this year yet, if not I might have to actually plant tomatoes. Spring is a wonderful time of year. Your garden sounds like a haven for wild things. Ours extends into paddocks with no clear boundary so the rabbits and hares come right up to the front door at times – I like it like that too.

      • How lovely to have rabbits and hares so near to you. I get rabbits in my garden sometimes, although they don’t come when Peanut is out there. I get her in during the afternoon and that’s when the rabbits start appearing. They’re lovely to watch. I also had no idea that tomatoes could grow wild.

        As you will have noticed, my last comment, which disappeared when I first wrote it, has still come out as from Anonymous. I contacted WP yesterday morning about this but still haven’t heard back from them. There seems only to be two blogs where this happens with my comments; one is yours and another is on another blogger’s page. All very mysterious. X 🦢

  3. a beautiful, buoyant poet: I love poems that celebrate the unloved, the neglected — and yes, it has been a long cold winter: bring Spring on 🙂

  4. Such a beautiful poem!
    Like other readers, I consider all ‘weeds’ as wildflowers 🌾🌾🌾

    • It’s a funny thing – weeds are weeds but some wildflowers are not weeds. It all depends on their virulence and affect on productive country. Pesticides are sprayed and yet these things destroy both weeds and insects and sometimes soil. Permaculture describes the purpose of some weeds as healing dead or diseased soil. The weeds grow where nothing else will and begin to nourish the micro biome of the soil. There is a lot to it. My eyes enjoy the view and don’t discriminate between weeds and wildflowers – it’s all beautiful.

Leave a Reply