This brings a whole new appreciation of weeds...

Rue

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
1,259
Location (City and/or State)
Canada
Having brought my baby home last Saturday - and doing my reading...has led me to a renewed interest in weeds.

I have dusted off my weeds books, including my Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada...and am rather surprised to find out that almost everything in our very weedy yard is edible...and most are on the 'good for Hermann's ' list.

I will have to double check on some I am not sure of, but we live on a sandy, saline, patch of the earth - so weeds love it here. My garden sucks for almost anything I try to grow...and does beautifully for weeds.

So outside of lots of dandelions we have a LOT of purslane, redroot pigweed, prostrate pigweed, lamb's quarters, Shepherd's Purse...I will have to double check on chickweed and a host of others.

There are lots of thistles growing in the ditches and at the edges of farmer's fields.

And for some reason I can grow petunias reasonably well...so I can harvest petunia flowers during the summer and add those to the diet.

This should make dog walking more interesting too...we can all stop periodically and smell the roses...

So now for my beginner questions:

1. Can I feed wild rose? Leaves? Hips?
2. Can I feed yarrow? It also grows well in the garden.

And...3. Can you freeze any of this for the winter? Chop it up and freeze it in ice-cube trays? Use it to supplement the fresh diet?
 

Levi the Leopard

IXOYE
10 Year Member!
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Messages
7,958
Location (City and/or State)
Southern Oregon
My outlook on weeds changed once I got a tortoise, too :D

Members have dried drying out the weeds and using it as a dry sprinkling of fiber on grocery store greens during winter. Freezing doesn't work too well.
 

Rue

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
1,259
Location (City and/or State)
Canada
Thanks. It hadn't occurred to me to freeze either...but a friend asked and I had no clue!
 

Rue

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
1,259
Location (City and/or State)
Canada
Stopped at the grocery store to check out more available greens until it gets warm enough here to start weed hunting...

Came home with kale and watercress. I've had kale before, but never watercress...so I munched on some. Wow! Peppery! Who knew? Now I will have to learn to incorporate that into our salads, since there's no way Goosefoot can eat it all before it goes bad. I hope I don't meet up with too much resistance on the part of the family.

Wonder if my parrots will eat it?
 

Pearly

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
5,287
Location (City and/or State)
Central Texas, Austin area
Couple of things come to mind: on your dog walks, pick only weeds in places where you know that city or county hasn't sprayed some crap on it. As for freezing, check out "garden chat" thread in here, go back a little bit, one of the members had few great posts about freezing different things with pictures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rue

New Posts

Top