Every farmer and every gardener knows the curse of weeds. Only this morning as I was at the allotment, I could not believe how quickly the weeds had grown since my last visit, undoing all my hard labour.
We read in Genesis 3:17-19 about how thorns and thistles were part of God’s curse for Adam’s disobedience. I don’t believe that thorns and thistles sprang into existence as a result of the Fall, it’s more that farming became toilsome and burdened by them as humanity attempted to fulfil God’s command to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Gen 1: 28). Even thorns and thistles have their place in the scheme of Creation; for example, thistles are a source of nectar for insects, their seeds are loved by goldfinches and their leaves are food for the caterpillar of the painted lady butterfly.
As every gardener also knows, a weed is just an ordinary plant in the wrong place (and I picked far more blackberries from the thorny brambles next to my allotment than from the spineless cultivated variety).
