A simple meal.

Last evening’s supper was grass fed beef with common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), honewort (Cryptotaenia canadensis), red clover (Trifolium pratense), white clover (Trifolium repens), cleavers (Gallium aparine), catnip (Nepeta cataria), bee balm (Monarda didyma), violet (Viola spp.), mile-a-minute (Persicaria perfoliata), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), and common chickweed (Stellaria media) cooked over the fire.

Before anyone freaks out that I harvested milkweed, and did not leave it for the butterflies, I should say that I harvested it from an area of my neighbors field that gets mowed regularly. There is a nice stand of it that they don’t mow right next to it.

Everything was cooked over the fire, but I did boil the milkweed in advance.

I am not exactly a very good cook, but you can’t go wrong with foraged greens over the fire.

Thanks for reading,

Nate

Invasives in the garden.

Checked in on my feral garden today and found a couple of invasive and weedy plants. No problem, with all the rain here recently, it was easy to pull them as young plants, and put them to use.

1st a found a few baby mile-a-minute (Persicaria perfoliata) plants. Many people hate this plant, and I can see why, it does climb over everything and has recurved thorns. That being said, I have been a lot bigger fan of the plant ever since a friend mentioned that it is edible.

Of course later in the year, when it is tough and covered in thorns, you only want to eat the young leaves, but when they 1st emerge you can eat the whole above ground part of the plant. They have a nice lemony taste. I pulled them, discarding the roots and eating the tops.

The other species that I found was Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis). It is considered invasive by some people, but to me it seems more weedy, just growing in disturbed areas. Anyway, I let a lot of it grow in my garden, because it is beautiful in flower, and because it is a great edible. The ones I found sprouting today were in an area where I am trying to grow turnip rooted parsley from seed, so I don’t want the competition from the Asiatic dayflower. I pulled the ones I found, and transplanted them to another area, where they can still provide food, but not be in the way of my parsley.

Here is a sample profile of Asiatic dayflower from my dvd.

 

Thanks for reading,

Nate