Facebook has been offering me support for my drug problem. Well, Facebook thinks I have a drug problem. Recently there was a post on a group I follow about dealing with Sticky Weed. I went to click on it, clicked wrong, went somewhere else. When I came back the post was gone. I searched for "Sticky Weed" and it triggered some AI-driven support process within Facebook.

For some people, "Sticky weed" is a form of marijuana. So, me searching for it on Facebook has set the AI helpers after me. I get offers of counselling, and drug rehabilitation programs and groups.

So, careful what you ask for.

The other Sticky Weed will be well known to most people who have a garden. Its a climbing, spreading weed. Sometimes it has a tough, stringy core so when you pull it out it slices through everything. The vine itself is sticky, as are the millions of seeds that look a bit like green coriander. It spreads very successfully. I had some last year and included it in my blackberry spraying, and I thought I had got most of it.

Wrong. It is everywhere this year, but not just on my place, its all over the State. And a couple of days ago I was in Canberra, 5 hours drive north, and it was in the suburban garden of the place where I stayed.

We've removed it from our vegetable garden area by the bucket load. Just yesterday I dealt with 5 jam-packed 20 litre buckets.

I don't think weeding actually does much. For every plant removed there are broken segments left behind that keep growing, and endless seeds. Its in my hay paddock, and as far as I know, the only solution will be to blanket-drench the paddock in the appropriate herbicide. Not something we would normally undertake.

I expect it has thri ved in the wet conditions of the last two years. We never saw it when there was a drought on.

So, I guess we will deal with it on an ad hoc basis, manually removing it when it gets too annoying. That's as far as we have thought it through at this stage.