Hello friends, it’s been a minute. When it’s between the garden and sitting down to write a post about the garden, the garden wins every time. Priorities!
Everything but for a few still too small to plant out perennials started from seeds is finally planted, which means the work has shifted to harvesting and maintenance. And wow, is there a lot of maintenance to do thanks to fairly regular rainfall and the occasional blast of heat. It’s a good thing we like to eat our weeds in this house! I use weeds broadly here since I have feral arugula all over, walking onions all over, sochan (aka yellow cone flower) in abundance, also violets, nettles, and actual plants considered weeds—lamb’s quarters, wood sorrel, and creeping bellflower. So many spring greens for salads and stir fries, soups and pasta.
The newest weed to the edible lineup is the creeping bellflower. I have it growing all over underneath the apple trees in the front yard. When it first appeared many years ago I didn’t know it was an invasive weed. I’ve seen it in yards all around town and it gets pretty purple flower stalks on it. Since I was having trouble getting plants to grow in the shade beneath the apples trees, I let it do its thing. For several years. And then I learned what a horrible weed it is.
It spreads by seed and roots and once it is established, it is impossible to get rid of unless you manage to remove every last bit of root. I no longer allow it to flower, and the stalks are easy to pull out, but pulling out the stalks doesn’t hurt the plant because of the insidious roots lurking everywhere.
Last fall, I learned the stuff is edible, both greens and roots. So why not give it a try since I have plenty? The roots are not big and are harder to get at than I expected. I probably spent about 30-45 minutes digging around for a kind of small payoff. I also picked greens. James, ever the trooper, sautéed the roots and greens along with some nettle, arugula, walking onion, and seitan and we had them for dinner over mashed sunchokes (I can at this point, count these as garden weeds too). I don’t think I will ever grow potatoes again because mashed sunchokes turn out to have a potato-y flavor, though they aren’t very starchy so lack a bit of “fluff.” If you want to learn all about sunchokes, I just listened to an episode of a new to me podcast today (The Poor Prole’s Almanac), Exploring the Many Names and Tales of the Sunchoke.
Our patch of wild ginger has also grown pleasingly large, and I dug up one of the little roots for the first time to try in the dinner. Wild ginger is native to North America and loves the shade. It is not the big rooted tropical ginger you buy at the grocery. These roots are small—rhizomes actually—and they do have a mild ginger flavor that is kind of earthy with a hint of pepper. You may have heard that wild ginger is toxic. Well yes, it does contain a toxin. However, I’d have to eat a whole lot of it, like a pound or more, for it to have any sort of affect, and really, that’s not going to happen. Everything in moderation!
So how did it all taste? Delicious!
If things keep on as they have been, it is going to be a banner year for black raspberries! I am so very excited. After the drought a few years ago they really suffered and have been making a slow climb back to fruitful. Well, it looks like this year they have made it! My mouth is watering in anticipation.
The cherries are doing well too. And, I’m afraid I am going to jinx it, but it appears I will be getting plums this year! There are quite a few that have reached olive size already. I am over the moon about this. Please think good plumy thoughts!
The chokeberries are also covered in little green fruit. And the clove currant likewise. I have two freezer bags full of rhubarb. Nom nom nom! My heart is so happy! And my mouth will be too.
The roses are covered in flowers at the moment. I picked a jar of petals, some petals from the two peony flowers that bloomed this year, and thawed out the rose hips I put in the freezer and forgot about last fall. James then undertook to make jam. I had rose jam on toast with some spiced chai for an afternoon snack. Divine!
The chickens are always disgruntled about not being allowed in the big garden, but they are quite pleased that we moved the compost bins out next to the coop. Sia especially loves to climb on top and mine for gold. When I am out in the garden she alternates between the compost bin and standing at the gate complaining loudly. Sometimes she stands on the compost pile, looks at me over the fence, and complains. But she can’t help but like me because we’ve got a treat thing going.
When I find a beetle, grub or cutworm I carry it over to the gate and yell chickens! in a sing songy voice. Sia rockets over from wherever she may be because she knows there is a treat at hand. Because of her bouffant, she can’t look up to see me drop the bug, but stands at the gate looking down at the ground in front of her. I drop the bug and she sees it when it hit the ground—most of the time—and gulps it down. It’s only Sia who comes running to the gate when I call. I’ve tried calling her by name but she doesn’t respond. Clearly I’ve established a recognizable treat call and I am now required to stick to it. Chic-ken!
Today I played garden statue while a young robin hopped around near me looking for insects. He must be able to hear them under the ground because he never scratched like the chickens do, but would hold still then stab his beak into the ground and pull out a cut worm or earthworm. It was pretty amazing to watch and I felt so honored that he hunted around for quite some time while I stood just a few feet away.
A week or so ago I was eating dinner and looking out the sliding glass door into the garden when a big crow swooped through with something in their claws and landed on my neighbor’s garage roof. That’s when I got a good look at what the crow had—a baby rabbit! I briefly felt bad for the rabbit, but then was glad there will be one fewer of them testing my anti-rabbit garden defenses. Soon there were a two other crows wanting to enjoy some rabbit and a bird—possibly a robin—who began dive bombing the crows trying to get them to leave. It was all a big ruckus. Finally the crow with the rabbit decided they had had enough and took off with their dinner, followed by the other crows and the poor parent bird, who obviously had a nest in the tree next to the garage, could relax.
When I mentioned the ruckus to someone the next day he was surprised to learn that crows eat meat. And then he was upset about the crow eating a baby rabbit. He said he found it disturbing when animals eat other animals (clearly he didn’t grow up watching nature shows on TV or reading nature books). I said, well you are an animal and you eat other animals and don’t find that disturbing so why would you be bothered by other animals eating each other? From the look he gave me I had clearly just rocked his world. Finally he managed to mutter, well I never thought of it like that before.
Speaking of crows, we have three adolescents hanging around. They were all in the maple tree squabbling but they didn’t have their grown up crow voices yet and James and I had to look up the tree to see who was making the noise. And then we laughed and laughed. Their voices are now starting to change. Sometimes they manage a big crow caw before their adolescent voice takes back over. It’s like when boys hit puberty and their voices change, only it’s crows, and it is utterly delightful.
That’s it for today. I will try to catch up with all the kind comments folks have left on previous posts as soon as I can!
Reading
So many good books!
- The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. An important book everyone should read, especially the long final essay on Palestine and Jim Crow.
- One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar Al Akkad. Another important book everyone should read. And also be sure to listen to his interview on the Between the Covers podcast.
- Salvage: Readings from the Wreck by Dionne Brand. A sort of reading autobiography and literary criticism of what it’s like to be Black and taught racist white imperial literature in school. She does a deep dive into Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe, and Mansfield Park. There is also a Between the Covers podcast interview with Brand about her book.
- The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk, illustrated by Joanna Concejo. Everyone moves so fast in today’s world that we lose our souls because they are not able to keep up with us. Soulless, we try to fill the void with other things. In this story, a man slows down long enough for his soul to find him again.
I’ve heard people make dandelion wine but first time to know you can eat weeds as salads. And, love that chicken hairdo!
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Weeds make great salads Arti! Lots of different flavors and textures and extremely nutritious! Just make sure you know what weeds you are harvesting so you don’t eat something you shouldn’t 🙂
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Wow, it’s all looking great, Stefanie. Always good when you can eat weeds, whether feral veg or the ‘real’ thing. I’ve already let dill, coriander, rocket (argula) and radish set seed in the tunnel in the hope they will pop up everywhere next year. It’s always fascinating to compare what we can and can’t grow, I love the sound of wild ginger, definitely not something I’m familiar with. Love the chick attitude (and hairdo), I have the same thing going on here ~ disgruntled they’re not allowed to free range but always happy to fight over some grubs! Do you have elderflowers? It’s the season here so today’s job is to pick flowers now it’s stopped raining, some to make into cordial which is the essence of summer, the rest to dry for winter teas, especially good with yarrow and peppermint for colds and chills. I’ll leave plenty for berries in autumn as they make a wonderful cordial for hot winter teas, too. Go weeds, I say! 😁💕
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Thanks Lis! I hope you have happy sprouts all over your tunnel next year! The wild ginger has turned out to be a lovely plant. I will try and remember to take a photo of the patch. It is low growing and has pretty big-hand-sized leaves. Poor disgruntled chickens 😉 I have an elderberry just getting ready to bloom. I’ve never harvested any flowers because I love the berries so much, but I think I’m going to cut some from the top of the tree and try some tea. The birds usually get the berries up top and I get the bottom, so hopefully this won’t prompt them to help themselves to “my” berries!
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I can’t believe your neighbor is so painfully dense. Well, actually, I can because I peruse Facebook and look at the comments. I didn’t realize crows in particular ate meat, though menu bird species do. And I think by “meat,” worms are included in that?
This post made me happy because it reminded me that every time I see a weed or go to pull it, I think, “What would Stefanie do?” I’ve utterly given up over the last three years on getting thistles out of the yard.
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I was a little surprised by his response Melanie! Yeah, crows are total opportunists. They don’t hunt and mostly go for roadkill, but they will raid the nests of other birds and, obviously, rabbit nests too.
Aw, that makes me happy that you think of me and weeds 🙂 Seriously! You totally need to start eating those thistles! https://foragerchef.com/edible-thistles/ 🙂
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It didn’t even occur to me that people would be eating the roots of the thistle. I just kept picturing people eating the leaves, and those things are evil. I noticed that the chef talks a lot about what to eat if you’re in survival mode, so I’m wondering what his story is and how he got started as a chef thinking about survival!
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I have his Froager’s Cookbook so I took a look to see if he talks about his background. He used to run some big time restaurants but got burnt out and then became interested in foraging. He has spent time with professional foragers and done loads of research on his own. I think he currently runs a small restaurant where he likes to serve unusual dishes made from foraged foods.
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OMG, he tried corporate and went back to the wild. I love that, lol.
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I think he started off corporate and then went wild, it’s still pretty awesome though 🙂
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Having feral arugula sounds delicious. Most of my weeds this year are catnip and tomato seedlings.
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When the arugula went feral quite a few years ago now Anju, it was a bit distressing because I thought, oh! my garden looks such a mess! But now I absolutely love it. It’s not a mess at all and it is really delicious 🙂
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Wow, it looks so dry in your spiral! But everything is still growing very well. (I know, I know, it can look like that 20 minutes after it’s rained or has been watered.) We have added a cat mint plant to the back yard this year and it’s doing quite well too. (A pot of catnip for a more, um, controlled substance heh that we move in and out of doors.) Your conversation with your neighbour made me laugh, but habits and traditions are hard to un-learn…and when they get mixed up with family dynamics and other things we learn when we’re young, it can be hard to sort everything out later in life. Especially when so often we avoid tough conversations. Maybe you rocked his world so hard, it will rock the thoughtlessly slaughtered animals right out of his menu choices.
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I think Marcie you might be mistaking the rocks of the raised spiral border as ground? I love catmint’s purple flowers and so do the bees. I used to have catnip out in the garden but got tired of the wandering neighborhood cats visiting. Though it was fun to bring a few sprigs indoors for my cats sometimes 🙂
You are right about habits and traditions being hard to unlearn. But maybe my neighbor will think more about food choices going forward. I can only hope!
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OH, yes, you’re right, thank you: with the different layers in the rocks, they seemed more groundlike. Side-note: once I zoomed in, those chive flowers are gorge!! (Our chive seeds didn’t work out. Meanwhile, I see them growing like weeds elsewhere. Literally in a ditch just a few blocks from home. If I ever see people in those houses, I’ll ask them if they’d mind…if… lol) There are a few people who have turned habits upside-down for me, with a single statement or anecdote… you could be that person with this question to him… or, to someone else.
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Too bad your chive seeds didn’t work out. I started with a plant because I couldn’t get seeds to work and it has expanded on its own from there.
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I’m all for eating weeds! It’s weird how we have these artificial divisions, e.g. between some plants that we call vegetables and put in a salad and other plants that we call weeds and spray with chemicals. And then there are the corporations that spray chemicals over the same plants we’re going to put in our salads!
Anyway, I grew to love wild plants when I lived in Crete, where foraging was a big tradition left over from times past when it was important for survival. You’d regularly see people on the sides of roads, picking weeds from the verge and putting them in baskets to cook later. A lot of them were truly delicious, and apparently had all kinds of health benefits.
Given the state of our garden in Serbia, we could probably eat for the whole year without ever needing to shop again, but I’m aware of my lack of knowledge of what is truly edible and what’s not, and that gives me pause. Sounds as if you’re in top of all that now, but how did you learn that in the first place?
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It is strange about the artificial divisions, isn’t it Andrew? The “weeds” tend to have so much more nutrition than the sad heads of lettuce at the grocery store. I suppose the food marketers want us to keep away from the free weeds so they can be sure we buy their increasingly expensive lettuce and “gourmet” greens. That’s so awesome to hear there is such an alive tradition of foraging in Crete!
How did I learn about what is edible? Mostly blogs and videos by foragers and I also have a number of books on foraging. There are actually a few professional foragers in my area that offer field trip classes. I’ve never taken a class, but would like to one of these days.
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It really is hard for some people to realize we are animals, isn’t it? (In reference to the mind-blowing conversation you had with your neighbor.)
I’m in awe of your garden! What a labor of love. I love the idea of feral arugula. I love that stuff.
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It sure is Laila! Further evidence of how we humans have cut ourselves off from relationship with the rest of the natural world.
And thank you! It’s a good thing I also love arugula! 😀
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There are an astonishing number of people who seem to live almost exclusively indoors and know nothing about nature. I meet a lot of them as first-year college students–part of it must be that they’ve never had much time to play outside or do chores like lawn/garden maintenance because they’ve been so busy building up their resumes to get into college.
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That is such a sad thought to me Jeanne. Kids, and adults, should be outdoors so much more often than they are. Nature Deficit Disorder is real and that it even exists at all is a tragedy in my book.
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Loving the garden stories! And your garden is looking fabulous! I’m seeing the herb spiral you mentioned in your comment on my post. Looks great! I wish I could plant more of my garden direct in the earth. We have rampant gophers here and they eat almost everything. The more you garden, the bigger their population gets. So, we have to do everything in raised beds. So, I look with longing at your large, lush garden! Luckily, we don’t have wild rabbits in our immediate area. Happy gardening! -lisa
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Thank you Lisa! Gophers are one critter I don’t have. It’s enough to cope with squirrels and rabbits, gophers would send me over the edge! I’m glad raised beds are a good solution for you though. I’m assuming you have a barrier of some kind beneath the bed to keep gophers from digging up from below? I guess every gardener has a critter challenge of some sort. I know someone who has trouble with groundhogs and another who has trouble with deer. It’s always something!
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