NOXIOUS WEED COBBLER

                                 NOXIOUS WEED COBBLER AND MY FAVORITE BAND

   Hardly a season goes by that Linda or I aren't buttonholed in the nursery by an ernest customer telling us that some plant we're selling is on the Noxious Weed List. I'm not saying it could never happen, but the chances are exquisitely remote. On the other hand, I'm personally growing several noxious weeds at home, and I'll bet you are, too without even knowing it.

   What is a noxious weed?  It's the common and legal term for a non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat. Our state divides noxious weeds into three classes, A. B and C, and you can read all about it at www.nwcb.wa.gov.

   For information in the nursery, every spring we post a laminated copy of the noxious weed list, (pictured above) but still! One fellow badgered Linda mercilessly about the blackberry plants we were selling this spring, not realizing that they were a domestic, legally cultivated, non invasive plant, not the Class C Himalayan Blackberry. Class C weeds are the worst class of weed, widespread and especially detrimental to commercial agricultural interests.

   And those egregious Class C blackberries are exactly the ones I'm growing, albeit unintentionally, and blessedly, through the efforts of my friend Lois and her John Deere tractor, I'm growing fewer and fewer of them every year. As they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but since life gave me noxious Evergreen Blackberries, I make NOXIOUS WEED COBBLER:

5 cups blackberries
1/4 cup quick cooking tapioca
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
   Mix berries, tapioca, sugar and cinnamon together and let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
   For the biscuit topper, sift together:
   1 cup flour
   2 tablespoons sugar
   1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
   Cut in 1/4 cup softened butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
   In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup milk and 1 beaten egg. Add to dry mixture, stirring until just combined.  Pour berry mixture into a baking dish, spoon batter on top in about 6 mounds. Bake at 400 about 25 minutes.  Let cobbler cool to just barely warm to firm up, serve with ice cream if this is dessert.  If this is breakfast, as it was in the picture, serve with Greek yogurt.

What's my favorite band, Mountains and Tunnels have to do with noxious weeds?  If you're going to Summer Meltdown in Darrington next week, August 9-11, you may hear them sing their song, NO ONE IN THE WORLD which features the refrain "as twisted as a noxious weed"! Or follow the above Mountains and Tunnel link to hear that song and more.