Planting a potager garden is a bit like setting your salad bowl right out in the backyard—vibrant, colorful, and full of surprise ingredients. Picture heading out the back door for a fresh handful of greens, but wait—are all those random sprigs and leaves begging to find a place in your salad? All that creepy stuff in your bed doesn’t always get there via invitation. That said, many of those little green hitchhikers may as well be the nutrition-packed stowaways your meals aren’t getting.
First, let me introduce you to the dandelion—so often we think of them as weed visitors with their white, fluffy tops bound and determined to take over the lawn.
But the dandelion greens just are such a fantastic replacement for spinach. Sprinkle that earthy, somewhat bitter flavor in—they are replete with vitamins and minerals. Lightly sauté these with some garlic and throw them in a salad, and it seriously gets your taste buds dancing. Now, the Chickweed: It is kind of a sneaky one, for it is very easy to spot out, provided one knows what they are looking for. Low growing, its small, star-shaped white flowers popping up from its henbit-like leaves, the taste of chickweed is tender and mild, a little like lettuce, but its taste has a slightly grassy note to it. Very nutritious if I do say so, and I daresay the chickens do love it!
A conspiracy courtesy of the cluckin’ ones? Coming up next: purslane. This succulent beauty spreads down paths, sporting a reddish, smooth stem with fleshy, oval leaves—so unmistakable, really. But, for real, it thrives under the radar: lemony, crunchy, full of Omega-3s—usually. And who knew this weed pulled a stunt running for its money against salmon? Ever hear tell of Lamb’s Quarters? That shy, coy kid in the corner, looking all silver dusted, outshines spinach: standing-ovation levels of calcium, protein, and vitamin B6. It can be used almost anywhere you’d think to use kale or Swiss chard. Once you let this wild thing into your kitchen, it just might just become the rockstar of your potager lineup. Nettles—leave attitude to the plant now. Well, sting and all, do not be scared away—they really are full of nutrients. Once boiled, they look like spinach but a twist of the tongue into a playful hard-to-get. A few claim the flavor of nettles is “green,” grassy; others speak to its earthy appeal.
The plantain in no way resembles the banana. This is a tough weed with big leaves and wasn’t so shy in hobo sacks of the past. Plantain leaves are coarse, rubbery affairs, somewhat like kale in its less sweet bitterness. A little cooking takes some of the spring out of it but then it’s quite decent in stews or soups. And last but not least: clover. That clover in your yard may be more than a charm, since the flowers of the red clover add color and sweetness to salads. More important, perhaps, though—their sweetness seems to stay with them in a sort of subtle way quite unmatched, somewhat like a little pace change from the normal greens.
Foraging Frenzy: How to Forage and Dine out Smarter on the Wild Edibles
Imagine yourself getting into a sort of potager, with leaves disguising the gastronomical treasures surfacing via forest trails. In front of you, there is Nature’s spread—a feast for bold, inquisitive souls who step in. Foraging and eating wild edibles is less an act than it is an adventure: a quest full of wonder if done right! Go into the woods with a basket in your hand, and there it is: a clump of mushrooms. Of course, you probably would think these were safe—after all, those little brown caps do look just like those button mushrooms from the grocery store, don’t they? Well, not so fast! Not all of the wild mushrooms get a free pass into your stir-fry. Wild edibles are as finicky as Cheshire cats, and a wrong call might just drop one into a place one wouldn’t want to be, say a hospital. Get a good field guide or app—written by knowledgeable people, preferably as sound as Mom’s advice to change your underwear. First impressions are not everything in matters like these, so never judge an edible by its attractive cover. Lots of toxic plants masqueraded as friendly table guests before, impostors if you will. One man’s hearty salad is another man’s stomach ache. If you’re just starting off with wild edibles, then go along with a knowledgeable forager—someone who knows the lay of the land, perhaps quite literally whistling while they work. Pictures in books and on websites of things which one would match in a memory game, but not replace human experience with; likewise, picking wildberry—though it sounds like the scene of some poetic pastorals—my friend learned isn’t all sunshine and strawberries.
She had been eating some of those wild berries, assuming they were raspberries. Indeed, the sweet little nuggets can be so different, really. Where in some berries the sheen is brilliant, sparkling even more than on a summer’s day, on others, they make your tummy go rogue. Somewhere in between delightful and deadly is the rule: when in doubt, throw it out! And always apply the subtle art of tasting small and then waiting before going all in. If ‘better safe than sorry’ was your grandmother’s favorite line, well then, she knew her stuff. Indeed, it’s a guiding star in the wild-foraging set. Cross-identify any plant using at least two sources—that’s twice as many as my brother used to use whenever he looked for his car keys. Know which wild plants are toxic look-alikes. Example: hemlock isn’t the solution when your cookout needs fresh parsley. As for tools, there’s little better than gloves and scissors. The gloves are to ward off those oils, which some plants so nicely deposit—like an inconsiderate house guest who won’t leave. The scissors and knives are for precision: think samurai, not lumberjack. Work after bringing your bounty home is to prepare it for consumption. Just as you wouldn’t dream of sending your kid to the table with greens straight out of the grocer—unwashed—wash your wild harvest. None of this is optional, really—you don’t know where those leaves have been! Soapy water is not invited to this party, but a nice rinse is nonnegotiable.
