Harvesting dandelion crops

I used to hate dandelions with a passion. They were the bane of my existence and I would go after them with abandon, wielding my Weed Hound like there was no tomorrow.

Of course, since these fits of dandelion mass murder occurred rather infrequently in spite of my hatred, they managed to take over. It didn't help that my kids think spreading dandelion seed heads all over is the greatest activity ever.

No problem, I thought. I'll make good use out of them. Since dandelions are edible from stem to stern, I considered using them as greens (too bitter) and even went so far as harvesting a ton of flowers for making chocolate orange dandelion bread (too savory).

But now that I have chickens? I harvest the crap out of my dandelion filled lawn. The chickens think dandelions, pulled up with their long tentacles and all, are the best food on earth. If I don't come out bearing a few dandelions, they cluck at me in admonishment. Fortunately, I have a good supply of organically grown dandelions at my disposal. I was almost getting afraid of over-harvesting them and cutting off the supply.

I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen since I've got several production sites in my yard (front, side and back). In any case, since the chickens love dandelions and turn them into brightly yolked high nutrient eggs and since I don't love dandelions, I'm more than happy to let them convert my weeds into even better homegrown eggs for me.

It's a win-win situation. And it's free, I don't have to put any labor into growing this food source for the chickens (except for pulling them up) and I feel like somehow I'm cheating. And the girls love them:



What do you do with your dandelions? Do you eat them?

Weed eater: Lambsquarters

I have to admit that I've been avoiding weeding the backyard like the plague. I'm just not up to even looking out there and seeing what the heck is growing. I spent an hour digging up dandelions out of the front yard a few weeks ago and barely seemed to have made a dent. You know you're in trouble when your neighbor comes over and mows your lawn. I know that makes us sound horribly white trash, but they do it for other reasons which I won't go into here. And, frankly, they do an awesome job even though we beg to pay for it and they refuse.

Anywho, yesterday I glanced out back while I was enjoying some organic chocolate samples (more on that in a later post) and, holy smokes people! I have a bumper crop of lambsquarters growing under my back deck again this year. Like enough to feed a family of, say four, for a week. I can't say I did any work to cultivate this masterpiece of garden edibility, but between that, the kale that is taking off and the spring dandelion greens (which I can't yet bring myself to snack upon), we should be good to go for greens for a while.

Have you ever tried lambsquarters? Some people actually plant it, but around here is grows, well, like a weed. If you do have lambsquarters growing unannounced, here's a great recipe for it. It tastes a bit like spinach, but is more nutritious:

Lambsquarters and Beans
adapted from The Vegetarian Times, July 1997

1 pound fresh lambsquarters or spinach, bigger stems removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 leeks, finely chopped
1 cup canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse greens several times to make sure that all sand and grit are removed. Steam greens in tightly covered pot until wilted. Drain greens and finely chop them. In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic/leeks and cook, stirring frequently, until leeks are soft, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in greens, beans and chili powder. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes or until heated through. Season with salt and pepper and serve. Makes 6 servings.

Makes 6 servings.

Per serving: 90 Calories; 3g Fat (25% calories from fat); 5g Protein;K 14g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 217mg Sodium

Edible eco-lawnscaping

Who knew that by neglecting my lawn, all sorts of really pretty things would start to take over? And, who knew they were all edible? Now, I'm not saying that it looks like a complete weedfest out there, but I refuse to water my lawn and am really bad at dethatching and fertilizing and all that.

So, it got a little patchy and other things decided to take root. But I keep the dandelions under control otherwise they'll completely take over. I call it my "eco-lawn" but it looks more like a very trim meadow.

Mixed in with the grass are lots of interesting little flowering plants that I keep trim with a weekly mow job. As the kids and I were sitting out on the "lawn" last Sunday, we watched the huge amount of bug and critter activity going on. You see, since my lawn hasn't been sprayed and isn't just a vast expanse of grass, I've created quite a little habitat out there for spiders, ladybugs, bumblebees and all sorts of other things I'm sure I can't see.

The most exciting is watching all the bees. I figure I get some sort of karmic bee pollination action for giving them all those flowers. In fact, the local nurseries around here sell a mix of lawn seed that includes much of what I already have growing. So, I didn't really need to bother with reseeding the lawn this year with a purchased mix.*

What do I have growing, you ask? And how are they edible?

Well, after doing a bit of research online, the lawn is sporting the following:

Oxalis, aka sourgrass - All parts of this plants are edible and are sour due to high levels of oxalic acid (hence, the name, sourgrass). The leaves and flowers can be used in a salad or can be used as a garnish for any dish such as fish or fruit salads.

The leaves can be eaten year round and stay tender and tart when cooked. Just don't eat too much of this plant as it will give some people a stomach ache if eaten in large quantities.

White clover - Besides making an excellent forage crop for livestock, clovers are a valuable survival food since they are high in protein, widespread, and abundant. White clover is not easy to digest raw, but this can be easily fixed by boiling them for 5 - 10 minutes. Dried flowerheads and seedpods can also be ground up into a nutritious flour and mixed with other foods, or can be steeped in hot water for a healthy, tasty tea-like infusion.

Purple clover - Purple (or red) clover can be used in salads, soups, as a cooked green, ground to flour, or made into tea. This clover is also high in protein. The most common things to eat on the clover are the flowerheads and the leaves, but are easier to eat if soaked for about an hour or boiled. The sprouted seeds are edible in salads and have a crisp texture and robust flavor.

Common Vetch - This legume has pretty purple flowers and little pea-like pods that grow from its far reaching stems. The seeds from this plants are not very palatable nor very digestible but they are very nutritious. The seeds can be dried, ground into a powder and mixed with cereal flour to make bread, biscuits, and cakes. The beans compliment the protein in the cereal making it more complete.

The leaves, young shoots and young pods can be cooked and the leaves can be in used tea. There is some evidence that the seed may be toxic but this has only been shown under laboratory conditions, there are no recorded cases of poisoning by this plant.

Common Vetch has been part of the human diet, as attested by carbonised remains found at early Neolithic sites in Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia. It has also been reported from predynastic sites of ancient Egypt, and several Bronze age sites in Turkmenia and Slovakia

Dandelion - Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably already know by now that dandelions, in all their prolific glory, are edible. In fact, all parts of this plant are edible. Dandelions are high in vitamins A and C, iron and calcium.

You can eat the leaves raw or cooked. You can boil the roots as you would a vegetable or roast and grind them for use as a coffee substitute. The flowers can be used to make jam and if you want to go real crazy you can use the flowers to make dandelion wine!

As with all food plants make sure if you decide to go grazing, that your greens haven't been sprayed or sprinkled with something you would want to ingest.

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Since I was doing all this reading on edible weeds I have a list of quite a few other ones that are found in my yard that I'll cover in another post.

Anyway, what do you all do with your lawns, if you have one? Do you maintain it with water during the summer and weed n' feed, or do you let it go a little more natural? If you keep it natural, would you or have you eaten the "weeds" that grow there?

*For those of you interested in a no-mow lawn or an eco-turf mix you can check into these different products: Nichols' Ecology Lawn Mix or Hobbs & Hopkins' Fleur de Lawn. Or you can just let nature take its course and come up with its own mix.