Too big to fail
Mrs. Doubtfire voice “Hellooo!”
Kudzu was the last bioweapons unit of the Union army in the US civil war. It never surrendered, it is still fighting the American South, and winning the guerilla war.
Playing whack a mole with my neighbours ivy. Keeps popping up on my side of the fence. Fuck whoever brought it to Australia.
I’m playing whack a mole with my own ivy. Fuck the prior house owners for letting it get out of hand. I got all of it from the trees and the side of the house but it always grows back. I’m still finding sprouts from thick woody vines that have been there forever apparently. I tried removing it from the fence but realized very quickly that it’s the only thing holding it together. 😒
And fuck the English for bringing it over (we both know it was them, even their plants are colonizers).
What I don’t get is why we don’t eat kudzu.
IIRC a lot of it has at some point been sprayed with super toxic herbicide to try and kill it off.
Don’t quote me on that though I’m just quoting a Wendigoon video from memory
It’s difficult to eat your way through an invasive species. Himalayan Balsam is also edible but it’s thriving in the UK.
In fact edibility is often the reason these things are so invasive, it’s why American Signal crayfish are over in the UK.
Texas: Hold my beer.
https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/lionfish-texas-gulf-19717247.php
(Also Texas: Have you tried hunting the kudzu from a helicopter using automatic weapons?)
I’ve seen someone collecting lionfish, basically using a litter picker and a bag.
Because Crake is saving it for some special project at Rejoov.
I hate (and am terrified) that I understood this reference. That series is horrifying.
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Kudzu CONSUME
Nah it’s pretty intent on covering the whole of England too tbh. Good for the bees in September tho ☺️
Near rivers it has to contend with Himalayan Balsam, and the bees love that stuff too.
Yeah I quite like the ol’ Himalayan balsam to be honest - very popular with the bumble bees. Gets a bad rap in the uk because it’s supposedly ‘invasive’, but I take rather a dim view of that kind of talk to be sure.
They do destroy biodiversity but at least they are pretty and won’t fuck you up like Giant Hogweed.
And you can eat it (as long as you don’t eat too much in case you fuck your kidneys)
Aye, this is the problem with a lot of invasive edibles. Too few people are interested in foraging and usually you can only eat so much foraged stuff.
If everyone went out with tubs, bags and baskets on their days off and did a bit of foraging to make their diets a bit more varied and healthy then we might be able to make a dent in things like Himalayan Balsam and American Signal Crayfish. Realistically though we’d just have to limit foraging of easier to identify and prepare plants and fungi from easier to access areas.
Kudzu is Chinese arrowroot tho?
Scienceuninformed memesVerbascum thapsus in Europe (nice medicinal plant):
Verbascum thapsus in Hawaii (alien mutant invasion):
Maybe it’s just me, but the second one in my brain gets voiced by LazerPig to the backing of Rule Britannia
