Eat the chickweed, dandelions & wild cress!

That is right- the weeds- eat them in salads, in tea, in soups & breads... anyway you like them, those wild greens that are sprouting are edible. Not just for chickens, either. Ease into feeding them to your friends, don't try to make them eat a whole salad of dandelions the first time they have ever heard of eating them. Maybe start by adding a few leaves in a regular salad, or making the herb vinaigrette with some of these herbs added for great digestion. These plants also have forms of minerals & vitamins that we can absorb easily, making them very nutritious.

Chickweed Vinaigrette:

1 C Olive oil
1/4 C white wine vinegar
1/2 C or handful of chickweed, dandelion greens, and "shotweed"
1-2 fresh mustard leaves (or 1 T stone ground)
3-5 cloves of garlic

Salt & Pepper to taste

Put everything into the blender and whirl it around; or chop all the herbs and garlic, then whisk everything together. Use immediately or store for about 1 week in the fridge.

Since you are mixing fresh herbs with the oil, there is a chance of this dressing going bad unless it is kept in the fridge, so use it up! Spring is the time we can use these herbs to help us transition into spring and summer.


Chickweed is the greenest thing in your garden bed, I bet. It tastes very "green" to me,Yum. It is the color of A St Patrick's Day Parade, and if you didn't want it to spread, what were you doing last month when it started growing? Snowboarding....Now it is lush and is going into flowering stage to maybe seed in warm places,and is quite tasty right now.
Dandelion roots, leaves, and flowers are edible, and I just saw a very clever one who had already gone to seed! I am going back to dig up it's friends and make tinctures from the roots, salads from the leaves, and I may make mead from the flowers one of these seasons.
Shotweed is also called wild cress, and it is the plant commonly referred to as a weed that is "blooming" now. It has tiny white flowers, and grows in a little rosette, about 4 inches tall and upright. In a few weeks when you go to weed it will have already gone to seed and shoot across the yard to plant itself in a snug place for next fall or spring. Shotweed tastes alot like arugula to me, with a slightly black peppery taste.
I almost forgot the cleavers, but they won't forget to hold on for a ride across the garden soon on your winter sweater that you will need to take off because it is going to warm up next week! Drink the cleavers in a tea the night or two after you pick them, apparently they don't keep well. I have kept some fast dried cleavers for about 4 months and they tasted good, but I don't know if they lost potency.

Any of the above plants can be made into a tincture or tea or vinegar-

Lots of volunteers mustards, lettuces, chards, beets, and kales are coming up all around the garden, I try not to weed too early in the season so these plants have a chance to grow up. I also figure, the more weeds I make and compost, the better the soil will be.

Don't eat the purple flowering plant that reminds you of a geranium... I don't remember the name, and it is such a "weed" that the people at the Garden Store didn't have a name for it- If you can get rid of it off site, that would be good, but if not, look for it early and get it before it even flowers.

peace-