It's been said that cockroaches might be the last living things left on Earth. I think that might almost be true -- the cockroaches will cavorting among the kudzu vines:
A fast-growing vine that's left parts of Indiana beneath tangles of greenery is coming under assault as the state ramps up its efforts to kill the leafy invader.
Over the next few weeks, contractors hired by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources will begin spraying herbicides on 32 tracts of kudzu vines in 17 Indiana counties.
Well, good luck with that. Kudzu is like some creepy, slimy thing from outer space in a B sci-fi movie. It grows incredibly fast and pretty much chokes out anything in its path, and the stuff will just not die. Where I grew up in Kentucky, you couldn't go on vacation for a week without the stuff starting to crawl up your front porch while you were gone. Remember the Stephen King part of the movie "Creepshow" in which the crawling green vines engulfed him? That had to have been inspired by kudzu.
The story I always heard was that kudzu was imported from Asia in the 1930s to help fight erosion, especially along railroad tracks. It was used for that then, but it was actually first brought here in 1876. It's been a popular source of food in Japan and China for thousands of years -- its pulverized roots can be used for any number of things. Maybe we'll end up liking "the vine that ate the South " after all.
