Dandelions!

An awesome sign I found at a garden show, along with the plants that will go in my new shade garden and a single pansy that my hubby got me as a present yesterday (he knows me so well), all chilling on the wood stove.

I learned something amazing yesterday: every single part of dandelions are edible. Some have multiple uses. All are highly nutritious, even medicinal.

It turns out that our most common weed is also an amazing superfood!

Get this: the roots of dandelions, best gathered in spring and fall, are highly nutritious and taste like parsnips. They can be stored the same way. Now I grant you - parsnips are not the most delicious thing. But here's the clincher: if you leave even a little bit of the dandelion root in the ground, it will come back. The whole thing will grow back. That means you pull out the root, eat it, and then enjoy the rest of the plant for the rest of the summer, once it's grown back.

Picked before the flowers come up, the leaves are decent tasting and tender. They can be eaten as salad, added to soups or stir-fries, are dried and added to things later. They can also make a mild tea that has mild laxative properties and helps the liver.

The flowers can be made into wine. The milky sap from the stems can treat insect bites. And then, in the fall, pull up some more parsnip-like-roots to feed you through the winter. The roots can also be ground up to make a decent coffee-substitute.

I figure that, fried with some garlic or baked with rosemary, those roots will taste just great.

Gooooooooooooo Dandelions!

A bit of Inspiration...

In ecosystem succession, weeds perform some of the most vital soil building functions. Many 'weeds' are dynamic accumulators that dig deep into the ground and draw nutrients up to the topsoil. They are the brave few who dare to go where other plants cannot: the infertile places, the too-hot-and-sunny places, the in-between places.

Why?

So that other plants can grow there afterwards. Weeds build up the soil, and in doing so, forfeit their competitive advantage over less hardy plants. They thrive in conditions where no one else can, but spend their lives making their homes hospitable for others, who will eventually overtake them.

Few forests would be possible without the efforts of weeds.