Bigoloni Farm project: April 2012

Before the peas, before the onions, before the wee beans start poking their heads up out of the dirt, we start harvesting. Long before any of our intentional and work intensive crops start popping up, there is a wonderful spring bounty of 'work free' wild plants that are delicious, and so so good for you, and all we had to do to get them was know how to recognise them...Most of you know most of these plants, and most of you call them by the generic term..."Weeds". Well, I call them supper!

I love the idea of wild food, of being able to walk into a field anywhere and find something to eat. Its free, its sustainable, it doesn't take any work or any manipulation or exploitation of the soil...So here's a guide to a few of my favourites that we are eating right now. Lots of these are very common, and grow everywhere -- see how many you can recognise, and next time you take a walk in the park, come home with a salad for supper. (but wash it, cause dog's pee in the park, and as far as I know dog pee isn't so very nutritious)

Ribwart

1) Plantago Lanceoloto (Piantaggine, or Ribwart in english). Grows everywhere. Very young shoots are excellent raw in salad. As they get bigger, they should be boiled and prepared like spinach. By the time its flowering, its usually too late, still edible but not too tasty. The plant does all kinds of good things for you, including: Diuretic, anti-inflammatory, good for respiratory problems. Also great for external use on bug bites and blisters, rub the leaves on the wound. There is also a variety with round wide leaves, just as efficacious, just as commestible, but not quite as tasty.

Yarrow

2)Achillea Millefolium, also known as yarrow, can be eaten raw and can be dried to make delicious teas. Its medicinal effects are numerous, and its one of the more important herbs in the herbalist's medicine box. Our fields are absolutely full of it, and the goats love it too! There are a million different types of yarrow, and you can recognise it by the fuzzy hairy leaves. Like most wild greens, by the time it flowers, the leaves aren't tasty anymore, but if you notice the flowers then try and remember the spot for next year...See wikipedia for the effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achillea_millefolium#Herbal_medicine

Hops shoots

3) humulus lupulus -- hops: This is a special favourite...we have the woods on the hillside behind the small farmhouse FULL of a spiny thorny horrid viney bush that kind of looks like blackberry from a distance, but doesn't make yummy berries, and we were all ready to just chop it all down and chip it and turn it into mulch, the nasty stuff...and then we discovered just in time to save it...its wild hops! Super duper scrumcious. In spring we eat the little spear shaped jets of new growth, just like asparagus. Its absolutely delicious -- I made a risotto with it that even Mia had three portions of, it was so delicious. And of course, when the flowers come, they are excellent for tea...and beer!! Don't know if we get to the beer stage, but its nice to know we could if wanted to!

nettles

4) Urtica dioica -- Nettles: This one is my absolute favourite. Perhaps because it has had to come so far in my esteem -- all the way from hated nasty-stinging-horrible-makes-weed-killer-seem-sensible-awful-yucky-nettles to WOOOOHOO-look-how-many-nettles-we-have-this-year!!! Or maybe just because it so darn good! Its sting comes from tiny firm hairs on the stem and under the leaves that work like mini hypodermic needles, injecting a tiny amount of irritant from each one. If you shake the plant around with a stick, the needles break and the sting disappears (though its impossible to get them all, so I still use gloves). Once boiled, the sting completely disappears, and you are left with one of the most delicious and nutritious plants there is. WAY more nutritious than spinach, and tastier too, and it doesn't take up any room in the garden, no weeding, no sowing...just harvesting. Nettles are FULL of vitamins A, C, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium. They are purifying and detoxifying, perfect for a spring clean-out of your entire body.

preparing nettle balls for freezer

And they are DELICIOUS. Boil first, then chop up into pieces, and use the pieces in an omelette or risotto. Or just dress with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice, and eat like greens. AND DON'T THROW OUT THE WATER! It is delicious as a broth, added to soups (add the leaves to soups too) and stews -- I take the reduced broth and put it in popsicle moulds in the freezer, then pop out into a freezer bag, and I have premade portions of the best broth ever to use all year long. It is also wonderful dried in a tea. Gab collected 8 kgs of it for me this year, and I have pre-boiled it and pressed it into balls, squeezing out the excess water, and frozen the balls. Once frozen, they are popped into freezer bags, and once again, pre-prepared portions to use all year long -- I just grab a few balls to throw into whatever soup or stew or risotto. And we can leave off the spinach, labour and space intensive, and when there's nettles, who wants spinach anyway!!

lambs quarters

5) Chenopodum Album (farinaccia or lamb's quarters in english): Apart from being delicious in salads or cooked as spinach, the Chenopodum Album is one of the oldest known plants used as food by humans...they found some in both the stomach and the purse of the frozen prehistoric guy in the alps. So I eat thinking "oog oog, caveman food yummmm". Its also very popular in India as a food crop, called Bathua and in many traditional indian recipes. It is used world over also for animal feed, and is especially helpful for ruminants.

Campion, ready to eat

6) Silene vulgaris, in english, campion or catchfly Here locally, its known as verzuli and is especially prized by the locals in Sabbio. This is a plant so common in Ontario, as soon as I saw the flowers, i remember seeing it everywhere when i was growing up. ITS
DELICIOUS. Like a super sweet and slightly mustardy cabbage. The fresh new

leaves raw in salads, and in theory the larger older leaves boiled or fried in omelettes and such,

silene Vulgaris, the flowers

but young and raw it is so delicious, that with us the only plants that get to a stately boil-able age are the ones we leave for seeding for next year; so I've never tried them that way! Again, like most spring greens, by the time the flowers come, its too late to eat the leaves. They are good from about 5cm until they are about 15cm high, then they start getting tough and ewww.

Dandelion

7) And...tip of the top, cream of the crop, its DANDELION and there we stop...Taraxacum Officinale. When I think of the dandelion killer we used to use on the lawn when i was a kid....sigh...the waste, the waste! Use the leaves boiled like greens or spinach, and use the buds preserved under oil or vinegar, as capers. Dandelion leaves are full of vitamins B1, B2, C, E, good sources of calcium, potassium, iron and manganese. It is considered a Diuretic, purifying, and used in rheumatism cures. It is an antispasmodic, also used for dispepsia and loss of apetite.

good to eat now!

And its not just good on the table -- its good for the whole ecosystem on the farm. Bees love the flowers, and it strengthens bee colonies. Its tap roots bring up nutrients from the deeper soil into the shallow levels of the topsoil, enriching the upper levels of soil for the surrounding plants. It attracts predatory insects that help keep the real pests at bay, so its actually good for companion planting. Weed schmeed! I think we should have lawns that are all dandelion and hardly any grass...actually, my lawn is pretty much there already!!!

Another interesting thing about dandelion -- there are a number of plants that look just like it, at least by the leaves alone (and, yet again, by the time you see the flowers, its too late to eat the leaves). Like Chicory (use roots to make coffee substitute) But have no fear -- ALL the other similar plants are also edible! Not all as tasty or as nutritious, perhaps, but all perfectly digestible and safe.

And here are some other surprises -- common plants and flowers that are actually edible, but i'm tired of the detail so I'm just tacking them all on the end...