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By Susun Weed
I always say the gardener's best revenge is to eat the weeds. I've been doing it for thirty years and can testify that my health and the health of my garden has never been better. Here are a few hints for gardeners who'd rather eat their weeds than hate them (and for non-gardeners who are adventurous enough to try out nature's bounty).
View your weeds as cultivated plants; give them the same care and you'll reap a tremendous harvest. Harvest frequently and do it when the weeds are young and tender. Thin your weeds and pinch back the annuals so your weeds become lushly leafy. Use weeds as rotation crops; they bring up subsoil minerals and protect against many insects. "Interplant" (by not weeding out) selected weeds; try purslane, lamb's quarters, or amaranth with your corn, chickweed with peas/beans, and yellow dock, sheep sorrel, or dandelion with tomatoes). And, most importantly, harvest your weeds frequently, regularly, and generously.
Overgrown radishes, lettuces, and beans are tough and bitter. So are weeds that aren't harvested frequently enough. Give your chickweed a haircut (yes! with scissors) every 4-7 days and it will stay tender all spring, ready to be added to any salad. If you forget a patch for two weeks, it may get stringy and tough and full of seed capsules. (All is not lost at this stage. The seeds are easy to collect –- put the entire plant in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 2-3 days and use the seeds that fall to the bottom of the bag –- and highly nutritious, with exceptional amounts of protein and minerals.
Unthinned carrots and lettuces grow thin and spindly, so do unthinned lamb's quarters, amaranth, and other edible weeds. Wherever you decide to let the weeds grow, keep them thinned as you would any plant you expect to eat. Here's how I do it: In early spring I lightly top-dress a raised bed with my cool-method compost (which is loaded with the seeds of edible weeds). Over this I strew a heavy coating of the seeds of lettuces and cresses and brassicas (cultivated salad greens), then another light covering of shifted compost.
Naturally, weed seeds germinate right along with my salad greens. When the plant are about two inches high, I go through the bed and thin the salad greens, pull out all grasses, smartweeds, cronewort, clear weed, and quick weed (though the last three are edible, I don't find them particularly palatable). And, I thin back the chickweed, mallows, lamb's quarters, amaranth, and garlic mustard and other edible wild greens.
Keep those annuals pinched back. You wouldn't let your basil go straight up and go to flower, don't let your lamb's quarter either. One cultivated lamb's quarter plant in my garden grew five feet high and four feet across, providing greens for salads and cooking all summer and a generous harvest of seeds for winter use.
When a crop of greens has bolted or gone to seed in your garden, you pull it all out and replant with another crop. Do the same with your weeds. We eat the greens of garlic mustard all spring, then pull it out just before it bolts (making a horseradishy vinegar from the choicest roots) -- often revealing a generous crop of chickweed lurking underneath.
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Susun Weed, green witch and wise woman, is an extraordinary teacher with a joyous spirit, a powerful presence, and an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs and health. Ms. Weed's four herbal medicine books focus on women's health topics including: menopause, childbearing, and breast health. For more please visit www.susunweed.com.
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