S.M. King casts a fresh eye over her garden, and likes what she sees.

“A weed,” he said, “is nothing more than a plant out of place.”

It’s not often these days that I crave the wallop of a bong. But a loving declaration about weeds made me long for, well, weed. It’s exactly the kind of thing I said throughout the 1990s to the hundreds of people who sat on the W Bin in my lounge room and showed me their Shiva tattoos

A weed. It’s a plant out of place. If someone had said it, which they probably did, we’d have nodded sagely and returned to Advanced Mull studies.

This was not that kind of crowd. For a start, they were sufficiently straight to take a Saturday stroll.

At the tail end of Weedbuster Week, myself, Partner and about 40 folk hungry for nettles gathered to hunt for edible weeds. Or, more to the point, we’d come to challenge our assumptions.

Leading the charge against convention and tastebuds was the amiable Adam Grubb. The educated forager is, as it happens, a climate change thinker of note. Some time ago, he helped found The Energy Bulletin. This website remains a daily requisite for the globe’s Greener Than Thou.

It’s easy to be beset by gloom when thinking about peak energy. And, frankly, The Energy Bulletin makes wusses like me want to run to the protection of the nearest bong. However, exercises like a Weed Walk don’t feel at all apocalyptic. This constitutional is a real and positive action.

“It’s about suburban adaptation to climate change,” says Grubb as he waves a spray of the stuff that I’ve been pulling out from under my rose bushes for years

The stuff is chickweed. Apparently it’s edible and medicinal. It can be used as a circulatory tonic, a cure for constipation, and cooked in a soup. It boasts more phyto-nutrients than I’ve had hot bongs and, according to many weed enthusiasts, tastes better than spinach.

To be candid, I’ve not yet ventured to the garden bed and gaily gathered posies. This is due, in part, to my tabby cat’s penchant for crapping in precisely that part of the garden. But it’s also due to my reluctance to begin what Grubb calls, “A weeding of the mind”.

I’ll learn to love the weed. And then, I’ll add it to my menus.

Grubb deputises participants in the walk. One holds a reference book called Australian Weeds: a source of natural food and medicine. Another brandishes Useful Weeds on Our Doorstep. Partner refuses to take Neighbourhood Forager.

“Isn’t it enough you dragged me to an organic food market in East Brunswick?” she hisses at me. “Must I embrace my inner Lesbian as well?”

Ambling along Merri Creek, we learn to identify and use Stinging Nettle, Mallow, Milk Thistle and an entire salad bar. And while it may feel a bit hokey, and while I may have downloaded a Tegan and Sara album with which to taunt Partner, this walk is important.

“The nutritional, medicinal and ecological properties of weeds are often overlooked,” Grubb tells us. And we’re here not so much to prepare recipes as we are to prepare our minds for a future where a disregard for sustainability will be impossible.

For information about Adam Grubb’s Weed Walks visit:

www.eatthesuburbs.org

For weed management information visit:

www.weedbusterweek.info.au

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