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| Lamb's quarter, ready for eating, stems and all |
Many of my garden weeds have no redeeming characteristics that I'm aware of, particularly the grass and the sedge. I suppose the vetch is a good nitrogen fixer, but it aggressively smothers all in its path. I've heard chickweed is edible, but haven't made a study of it yet. Wood sorrel is nice for the occasional nibble, though not in the quantities that spring up upon every inch of soil here.
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| Purslane |
But among my weeds are some true gems that I've been actively encouraging - namely the purslane, lamb's quarter and sheep sorrel.
Michael Pollan once called purslane and lamb's quarter "the two most nutritious plants in the world." Purslane is a creeping succulent weed that adds crunch and a hearty flavor to salads. Sorrel adds a lemony tang as well as vitamins to salads, soups or stir fries.
Yesterday I had to thin and weed the beets, so at dinner we had lamb's quarter and beet greens sautéed with a little garlic and sorrel.
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| Blades of sheep sorrel |
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| Curly dock with pokeweed behind |
Personally, I think lambs quarter outclasses any other green. As a child the only greens I would eat where lamb's quarter and its cousin, a wild amaranth we called red root. They are both mild, but hearty. Throw in some mustard leaves for heat.
I also have curly dock and pokeweed, though not in the garden. Both are too mature now, the dock too bitter and the poke downright poisonous. But I make note of where they are because in march, their early leaves are the first salad of the year. I still haven't tried the poke, but the dock was a mild, tender leaf more delicate than lettuce. Mixed with some early dandelion leaves (which I find bitter) it's delicious. I can only imagine how delicious it must have been to people who'd had no access to fresh greens through months of winter.
