eat your weeds?

[Martin Bohnet]

At this very moment I'm munching a salad of chickweed, ground elder, a bit of sorrel and Allium ursinum

. In the summertime, there would also be some Portulaca olearcea - and no more sorrel for the higher oxalic acid content.

It may just be psychology, but those always seem to taste a bit more delicious, just because one knows they won't pain you anymore in the garden - even though you'll never be able to get ahead of ground elder or chickweed with your appetite alone...

What weeds do you enjoy to consume?

[Diane Whitehead]

Hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta.

Dandelion, but only in the winter.  It is too bitter when it begins flowering in the spring.

[Robert_Parks]

If the volunteer Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) seeds well, I'll be eating them next year. The existing plant is over grown and bitter at the moment. If allowed to escape in irrigated gopher free (hahaha) areas, Oca would definitely become weedy.

[Martin Bohnet]

my currenly most favourite weed: extremly fast with runners, can even get into pots if they stand around a slightly raised bed, difficult to eradicate with brittle roots - and very good at bribing the gardener.

[Judy Glattstein]

Garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata. Young leaves are good for salad or pesto. Older leaves - feed to neighbor's sheep.

Ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris. Fiddlehead fronds in spring, quick blanch then stir fry.

Tawny daylily, Hemerocallis fulva. Young shoots, semi-blanched by nature with heaped up fallen leaves. Prepare kimchi style

Butterbur, Petasites new flower bud shoots before they expand very much

[Martin Bohnet]

That fern sounds like an interesting dish - how does it taste?

Of the daylily I only eat the flowers - but they don't behave too weedy around here. Meanwhile, the purslane/portulaca season has started - I really like the succulent texture, but you have to get it before it flowers, the seeds are somewhat sandy.

[Judy Glattstein]

The fiddleheads taste . . . green, not quite like asparagus but that's about the closest I can come. Won't make you pee smell funny either.

Here's a picture of garlic mustard and fiddleheads, foraged but not yet prepared.

And another of chow fun stir fry with pork, asparagus, fiddleheads over broad noodles

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