Challenge for the weekend... Weeding Edibles

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Challenge for the weekend... Weeding Edibles

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cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Thu May 05, 05 9:10 am Post subject: Challenge for the weekend... Weeding Edibles

If your garden and/or allotment is like mine, then weeding is a constant chore right now.

Consider this; the newly turned ground that you've been cultivating your vegetables and flowers in is as good a place for wild edibles to lurk as anywhere.

Edible weeds in my veg patch right now include dandelion (cute little seedlings), fat hen, chickweed, goosegrass, common mallow, nettle and shepherds purse. Many of them (mallow, fat hen, chickweed, shepherds purse and odd other edible ones) commonly make it into salads; the nettles are normally allowed to grow till harvested.

My challenge for you chaps for the weekend is to put some of your weedings on your dinner plates. Up for it?

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Thu May 05, 05 12:50 pm Post subject:
Yep I am planning on making a vat of nettle soup for the freezer.

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Thu May 05, 05 1:15 pm Post subject: weeding edibles

you know cab i never even thought about it

last week it was a lovely barbecue weekend as you know and i went and bought a bag of salad from morrisons (absloutely ghastly actually) and never gave the weeds any thought at all

i had spent a fair amount of time that weekend doing gardening and could very well have saved myself some dosh and enjoyed it a bit more as well

i am sure i have chickweed, shepherds purse and dandelion in the veg plot and i know i can eta hawthorn buds as well

if it is outdoor eating type weather this weekend i think i might try it

one question though .....aren't all of the things you mentioned a bit bitter and there fore you wouldn't want to make them the basis of your salad?

please advise

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Thu May 05, 05 2:00 pm Post subject: Re: weeding edibles

Nanny wrote:

one question though .....aren't all of the things you mentioned a bit bitter and there fore you wouldn't want to make them the basis of your salad?

please advise

Very good question!

Very, very young dandelion tends not to be bitter, but adult dandelion varies from pleasingly bitter to inedibly bitter. Chickweed isn't in the least bit bitter, it's cressy/spinachy and good at this time of year. Most of the wild brassicas aren't bitter when they're young, but get bitter when they flower.

Sorrel, if you have it, is sharp and pleasing; either use a domestic variety or wild sorrel (wild is perhaps ever so slightly nicer than the broad leaved variety).

Give them a mix with just a little bit of lettuce if you find that the whole thing is a bit too bitter.

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