If you know your edible weeds and these foraging tips, you could have a garden harvest even before you plant anything! It's great to get an immediate reward for a rehabbing a neglected garden area!

Thanks to @lenasveganliving for her FruitandVeggiesMonday, and @progressivechef and @englishtchrivy for their sponsorship.

A Raised Bed Rehab Project

My gardening changes from year to year. I recently cleaned up a little raised bed garden that I have ignored for too long. I found 11 kinds of edible weeds and cooked them up. They fed me for days! But I also found a weed that's toxic enough to kill you and me! See if you can tell which weed that is. I've got some tips for foraging weeds from your garden or yard, too.

Looking over the weeds in here, there's a lot of good eating!

Tip 1: Pick Clean

Don't just pull a weed and toss it into a bowl or basket. Cut the roots off so the soil doesn't make it back to the kitchen. And double-check any clumps of plants to make sure there's nothing mixed in with that 1 kind of plant. After all, not every weed is edible!

Some plants grow in big clumps, like this Nipplewort. But look through the whole bunch to get out any plants that are different! It's easier to do it as you pick, rather than in the kitchen!

Cleavers stick to your clothes so well, it's easy to see how they got some of their other common names, like Stick-tights. So many other plants get stuck among their long stems, too. So I'm keeping only the upper stems.

Tip 2: Pick Organized

I made a Steemit post about 2 different strategies for efficiently picking garden weeds to eat. In a garden rehab, there's often a wide assortment of weeds. So I start off with a lot of bowls to hold the different kinds of weeds that I'm picking. I keep each kind of weed in its own pile. That way, it's a lot easier to double-check the plants back in the kitchen to remove any parts that are in poor condition -- or unwanted plants, like the really toxic one!

I use a lot of different containers to keep my weeds organized as I harvest them. And I have a bucket of water to rinse my hands if they get too muddy from working in the soil. That makes it easier to keep the plants clean as I harvest them. This is Purple Deadnettle. The lower stems are more stiff and mature than I want to bother with.

Tip 3: High-Grade

In picking garden weeds, we don't have to take everything. They're weeds, after all, so it's OK to high-grade, and just take the best plants back to the kitchen. Or the best plant parts.

This Bittercress is getting mature - it even has some seedpods already. But the upper part of the plants, including the young seedpods, are still tender. So they are just fine to harvest. I taste a lot as I pick, to check the condition of plants that are edible.

Even though a lot of folks say that dandelions are too bitter once they have flowers, that's not always true. It depends more on their growing conditions. These grew with plenty of rain and constant clouds, so they are just fine to eat! I eat their roots, too.

Tip 4: Learn to Identify a Lot of Weeds - Correctly!

There are so many wonderful weeds to eat. The more of them you get to know, the more food you can harvest! I am constantly amazed at how much food is all around us. And these plants are really tasty, too. It's not just for some imagined survival situation -- these plants are real food for regular people!

I see so many people that think they have a dandelion, when they really don't - even when the plant is flowering and unmistakable. Dandelions can have many flower-stalks coming out of the center of the plant, but there is just 1 stem for each bright yellow flower. And their stems are hollow. Dandelions do not have a central flower-stalk with several flowers on it.

There are a lot of different wild lettuces that can be hard to tell apart until they are too mature to eat. But Prickly Wild Lettuce is easy to identify. On the underside of the leaf, the stem has a row of little prickles. The prickles are easy to feel, but don't cause any problems for eating.

Prickly sowthistle is such a great weed to eat. People get it confused with thistles because the plants look so prickly. But I can touch a prickly sowthistle! I couldn't do that with any real thistle!

Tip 5: Watch Out for Poison Hemlock

This is one plant that every gardener should know. Poison hemlock causes a lot of trouble -- for gardeners more than foragers! I keep track of poison hemlock reports in the medical literature and newspaper articles. Poison hemlock gets mistaken for garden carrots, parsley, fennel, and even kale. By inattentive gardeners, but especially when non-gardeners are helping with a harvest. Those reports are tough to read!

Poison hemlock has purple-red blotches on the stems, even when it is young.

And the roots stink! Like a rat's nest or a place where lots of cats spray to mark territory.

Enjoy Your Garden Weed Rewards!

It takes time for newly planted gardens to produce their crops. It's really satisfying to get an immediate reward -- even before planting anything! After clearing out my raised bed, it's all ready to plant now. And I've got a big batch of delicious wild greens to eat, too! Enough for days!

Those are all Purple deadnettle in the 1st bowl. In the 2nd bowl, there's Wild carrot, Bittercress, and Bristly Hawksbeard.

In the 1st bowl, there's Prickly Sowthistle, Common sowthistle, and Dandelions. In the 2nd bowl, there's Hedge mustard, Dandelion roots, and Prickly wild lettuce.

And look at that giant bowl of Nipplewort!

 

What Do You Think?

• Do you have any weeds in your garden?
• Do you eat any of your garden weeds?
• Do you know any of these weeds?
• Would you eat my weeds?

I eat a lot of wild plants and show you how, because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wild places.

I try to make content that's interesting! If you found this informative and helpful, please give it an upvote and a resteem.

Plant List

• Nipplewort - Lapsana communis
• Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale
• Common Sowthistle - Sonchus oleraceus
• Prickly Sowthistle - Sonchus asper
• Prickly Wild Lettuce - Lactuca serriola
• Hedge Mustard - Sisymbrium officinale
• Cleavers, Stick-Tights, and lots of other names - Galium aparine
• Bristly Hawksbeard - Crepis setosa
• Bittercress - Cardamine hirsuta
• Purple Deadnettle - Lamium purpureum
• Wild Carrot, Queen Anne's Lace - Daucus carota
• Poison Hemlock - Conium maculatum - DO NOT EAT!

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Haphazard Homestead

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foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land
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