I grew up tromping around the woods of upper lower Michigan. I am one of the few people I know who would not starve to death if dropped into the middle of said woods. Yet every single year, I learn that something else is edible.
Here are three things I learned are edible THIS WEEK. Also a revelation I had on identifying edible wild species.
No really. You can EAT that. WHAT.
Annual honesty (not to be confused with perennial honesty) puts out bunches of purple flowers each spring. Its seed pods end up in a ton of dried arrangements, where they are commonly known as "silver dollar plant." It likes slightly acidic soil and part shade, and it LOVES my compost pile. I started with like one plant two years ago, and now I have dozens. It does not tolerate being transplanted well, but that doesn't matter when it will drop its seed babies ALLLLL over your yard.
It is also edible. A thing I did not know until this weekend. It is a brassica - a member of the same family as cabbage, broccoli, mustard, and Brussels sprouts.
It's fine. Kinda flavorless once it starts putting its energy into its flowers. But fine.
Also known as damask-violet. Not to be confused with wild phlox. They look similar, but dames'-rocket has four petals while wild phlox has five.
My mom has a ton of this growing just outside her flower garden. It also likes to be under pines, partly in the shade and in somewhat acidic soil. It is also a brassica. I just thought it was pretty, being one of the first proper displays of wildflowers in the spring and a herald of morel season.
It's not only edible, it's REALLY GOOD. Also gets a little flavorless once it starts flowering, but up until that point, it's GREAT. I have been MISSING OUT my entire life.
The leaves do have little hairs on them that some people don't like. You can get rid of those by dipping it in boiling water for five minutes or so. I don't mind them. I'm going to eat so much of this stuff next year.
Quackgrass, also known as couch grass, is my sworn foe. This stuff grows everywhere. It grows from long rhizomes. Even one inch of rhizome left in the ground will produce new quackgrass. I loathe this stuff. I have battled it in the garden my entire life. I will die cursing its name.
IT IS ALSO EDIBLE. WHAT THE ACTUAL ##&*@&.
I learned this from a permaculture forum. Said forum claimed the roots, when dried, taste kind of like jasmine green tea. It also said they were an effective diuretic. A quick online search confirmed that some of you weirdos are actually BUYING this stuff dried by the pound. WHAT.
So I dug some up, dried it, and tried it.
Friends, this tea tastes like quackgrass. It does not taste like either jasmine or green tea. What sad excuse for jasmine green tea have y'all been drinking. This tastes EXACTLY like quackgrass smells when you pull it.
It is a very effective diuretic, though! Which was great, as I spent the last week on prednisone to kill off the bronchitis I have had for the past month. So I will be keeping this stuff in my tea cabinet (or, as Gremlin calls it, my plant witch cabinet). I just won't be enjoying it recreationally.
I also spent this weekend drying dandelion root and turning stinging nettle leaves into a frittata. The garlic mustard is now flowering and thus past its prime. There's some kind of low growing native amaranth in my front yard this year, so I ate some of that. Found eight morels on the slope under my neighbor's pine tree and ate those too, along with a couple dogtooth violets. I am a yard toddler.
I don't know why it took me until age 43 to figure this one out, but here it is. Most of the plants we eat actually come from only a handful of families:
If you're looking for edible plants, don't just look for individual plants. Look for plant *families* and drill down from there. It became glaringly obvious to me, for instance, that annual honesty and dames'-rocket SHOULD be edible once it hit me that they're brassicas.
You can't stop at families, of course. Nightshades are an obvious example. Tomatoes are fine but belladonna (Atropa belladonna) will kill you. The fact that tobacco is in this family is a pretty hefty clue that it doesn't want to be eaten. Giant hogweed is an umbrellate but do not handle it with your bare hands and DEFINITELY do not put it in your mouth. And don't fool yourself for one second that every mushroom is your friend. Many are not.
Another way identifying wild plants by families is useful: Say you have a bit of land you want to garden, but you're not sure what will grow well there. Look for what's already there. Is it full of Queen Anne's-lace? Other umbrellates like carrots and parsley will probably love it. My backyard hill is wall to wall brassicas this year; I think cabbage and Brussels sprouts will do just fine up there. The corner full of catnip should repurpose beautifully as an herb garden. And so on.
Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours?
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