Pigweed

So the other night, I was over at my brother's and sister-in-law's, dropping off some tomato plants (Sweet 100's - a breed of cherry tomatoes we used to grow on the farm back in the day, NOM NOM NOM) and homemade yogurt, and mooching some of her homemade strawberry jam to give F with her yogurt. My sister-in-law started regaling me with tales of her childhood, eating mass quantities of wild, foraged salads (she even knew a bit about the nutritional values).

I'd been getting so many pigweed seedlings in my garden, along with the purslane, that I started to wonder if it's edible. Well, lo and behold, that's what she used to eat so much of. I believe she said pigweed, dandelion, and milkweed tops (which you have to get young or they're bitter, she says). She also used to forage fiddleheads.

Well, you know what this means. Next time I'm at F's, I'll be scanning the lawn for something new.

Then I remembered that I'd saved a link in my favorites for wild edibles; Foraging with the "Wildman." It's full of great information, and contains photographs as well as drawings of varying stages of the plants so you can identify them easily. Not everything on there is edible - some things are remedies, and some are plants that you'll want to identify in order to avoid. For some reason it doesn't cover pigweed (although Garden Mosaics does here), but there's a wealth of info on lamb's quarters, sow thistle, curly dock, and nettles (harvest with gloves!), as well as the favorites here at Budding Locavore, garlic mustard, purslane, wood sorrel, and violets. That first group are all plants that I've seen around and wondered about, and now know I can forage.

He also discusses daylilies and clovers (good for tea), and he's made me very curious to try and find sassafras and black birch.