Say “weeding” in the presence of gardeners and watch their smiles turn to frowns. Then step back as they all begin to tell their favorite weeding stories, always using the verb “weeding.”

Well, let me add a little spice to the conversation by adding a few new verbs to describe the many different ways in which we weed.

These are in no particular order.

Teeding

When you are tediously teasing out tiny weeds from amongst tiny plants, this is called teeding. An example of teeding is when you are teasing out chickweed growing amongst miniature hostas. Teeding takes patience and often smaller than normal weeding tools to avoid damaging the non-weeds.

Creeding

Creeding is the term used to describe pulling weeds out from the cracks between patio pavers or on a sidewalk. When creeding, there is always the chance of a pleasant surprise, like a tiny viola coming up from seeds dropped from nearby containers. Or you may find petunias or even hostas growing up through the cracks. When creeding, you may choose, as I do, to let those violas, petunias, and hostas keep growing in the patio.

Deeding

Did you ever have weeds that were so deeply rooted that the only way to get them out was by digging them out? That’s called deeding. We all know that deeding is just about the only way to really get rid of dandelions, and thistle too.

Smeeding

Smeeding is a passive way of removing weeds by smothering them. Some people do this by covering the garden area with plastic so that the soil underneath bakes in the sun and kills the weeds. You can only smeed in this way when you are completely replanting an area. Another method of smeeding is by covering the area with thick mulch. This is sometimes called meeding, though smeeding is preferred because meeding has another definition..

Heeding

You knew it was on the list. My new word for removing weeds by cutting them off with a hoe is heeding. That’s because hoeing has been tagged by one too many censors who have their minds in the gutter and not in the garden. You can use a variety of hoes for heeding. Hmmm, maybe we need to call hoes heeds now? Regardless, when heeding with a heed, be careful so you don’t accidentally heed out a little self-sowing viola out there.

Meeding

When you combine meditation or thinking meandering thoughts with weeding, that’s meeding. You just never know what you might think of when you are meeding. May you’ll think of more plants you need to buy or maybe you’ll think about a blog post to describe all the different words we can use to describe all the different types of weeding we do.

Reeding

When there are so many weeds that you are just wildly ripping them out, that’s reeding. It’s good exercise but not much fun otherwise, though there is that satisfaction you get when the area is finally cleared off weeds. Now you have room for more plants!

Obviously, I did some weeding, I mean needing, or was it creeding, or meeding before writing this post.

Regardless of the term for what I did in the garden today, it resulted in this blog post.

You’re welcome.