Bringing in the weeds.

We had a cooler-than-usual May, which made us reluctant to put things out early. It’s only in the past week that our planted lettuces were big enough to start semi-harvesting.

(Why “planted” lettuces? Because we’ve been startled by rogue lettuces – and Asian greens and quinoa – popping up everywhere. More on that in a minute.)

Longing to eat something, anything, that was fresh, I started bringing in the weeds in the first week of June. Some were actual weeds, such as the fireweed in the illustration. Epilobium angustifolium was consumed by Alaska Natives long before we got here. I’d been reading about its edible qualities and decided to give it a shot because nothing else was fresh at that point. (Except dandelions, and I find them too bitter.)

So I picked some of the smaller plants, sautéed them in olive oil with garlic and ate them on some of DF’s amazing rustic bread. They tasted mostly like oil and garlic. No surprises there. Underlying it was a slight sweetness, similar to cooked spinach.

Here’s an amuse-bouche view of how they turned out:

At first glance, my friend Linda B. thought it looked like an insect. It does, kind of.

Another weird weed wasn’t a weed at all, but rather the flower heads of our rhubarb. I’d been reading up on this vegetable that masquerades as a fruit, and one writer mentioned that the flowers were edible as long as you trimmed as much of the stalk as possible. The stalks and leaves of rhubarb contain oxalic acid, which in sufficient quantities can make you sick.

Again, I was so anxious to eat fresh food that I gave it a try. The first batch I roasted in a very hot oven, with a little olive oil and kosher salt. The flower heads wound up looking like the cauliflower I sometimes roast that way.

The flavor was vaguely citrus-y, and after half a dozen bites I decided I’d had enough. The rest got dumped into a batch of homemade soup. Several other flower heads have popped up since then; these I simply steamed and froze, to be added to later soups. They’ll provide a little variety, especially on days when the only vegetables we have are carrots, onion, and peas and celery frozen from the previous year’s garden.

Those last two are running low, so I’m looking forward to seeing this year’s crops flourish. Some days it feels that we will never run out of dehydrated celery leaves, and I’ve still got a couple of gallon Ziplocs full of dehydrated Asian greens and red cabbage. That stuff just hangs on and on. If we don’t use up all the celery, I’ll probably dehydrate only half of this year’s leaves and put the rest up for grabs on the local Buy Nothing Facebook page.

Incidentally, the rhubarb leaves are enormous this year. I couldn’t measure this leaf without tearing it as I stretched it, so I put a can of soup at the top for perspective. This is one big boi:

An onslaught of quinoa

I’ve also been snipping chives, which look pretty in a salad and provide a pleasant zing to an egg-salad sandwich. That particular lunch was made with dollar-a-loaf Dave’s Killer Bread, courtesy of the bakery outlet.

The other “weeds” were the volunteers mentioned earlier: several kinds of Asian greens, a greeny-red lettuce from last year whose name we don’t recall and quinoa. So. Much. Quinoa. We grew it a few years back and harvested the seeds, but ultimately decided to focus on crops we can enjoy all summer and easily put by for the winter.

The quinoa had other plans, though. It’s like mint: If you have quinoa once, you’ll have it always. And everywhere, apparently. DF planted some sunflowers in pots so he could move them around the yard to draw bees, and we were surprised to see a few quinoa plants pop up.

He couldn’t be sure whether the seeds came from in the greenhouse where a couple of mature plants had been stored, waiting for me to get to them (spoiler alert: I forgot they were there), or whether he’d scooped out some dirt from one of the raised beds. No problem. He pulled up the quinoa seedlings and that was that. Or not, because a few days later we saw this:

Holy cow, is that stuff prolific! And determined. It germinates practically overnight, and as far as I can tell will send up a new shoot if there’s even a fraction of a root hair left when you pull up the seedling. Somehow it filled in the entire pot, even though there’s no way that much seed was broadcast onto the soil.

I’ve seen quinoa growing here and there in the yard, and have pulled up quite a bit. Some of it goes on sandwiches (those are quinoa leaves under the egg salad sandwich pictured above) and the rest goes into the boiling bag.

A couple of other weeds have gone in there as well: dandelion leaves and chickweed. I’m glad to be able to put in something that’s green and new, as our winter broths have been made mostly of potato peels, onion skins and carrot tops, plus the occasional fruit core. Spring and summer boiling bags have tons of greens and, later, peapods and apple cores as well.

A bowl of (mostly) weeds 

Much of tonight’s salad will be a leaf lettuce called Red Sails. Variety being the spice of life, it will include anything else that’s edible. DF didn’t put in much spinach this year but it’s big enough to pick. Unfortunately it’s been bolting because of the long days, but I just pinch off the seedheads and hope for the best. (The heads go into – you guessed it – the boiling bag.)

Here’s a look at that Red Sails, with a bit of spinach in the foreground:

(It’s redder in real life, but the midnight sun washed it out a bit in this photo.)

As for that greeny-red lettuce, it’s a mystery. Last summer DF ordered multiple tons of gravel to be dumped in the back yard, to fill in a low spot. This spring he noticed more than a dozen of those lettuces popping up through the gravel. More plants showed up at the back edge of the property. All we can figure is that the plants went to seed (again, we leave the flowers for the bees) and ultimately the seeds blew back there and took root.

Tonight we’ll also be chowing down on chives, which are starting to die back and need to be eaten, as well as on several kinds of Asian greens. I keep using that phrase but we don’t know what these plants are. They’re the descendants of a package of mixed Asian greens I planted my first summer here. No idea what they might be, but I like the fact that they’re popping up everywhere: They produce flowers fairly quickly in the nonstop sun, and they keep the bees happy once most of the dandelions have gone to seed. (At least two beekeepers operate in our neighborhood.)

Another Asian green variety volunteered like mad, and DF pulled them up and replanted them in a row. So far, so good. Here’s a close-up:

Their flavors are honestly pretty bland, but I don’t care. They provide a little visual variety in the salad bowl and they’re good for us. Besides, I feel that way about most greens, including lettuce. Their flavor is okay, but not great; they exist mostly as a vehicle for getting Russian dressing, sliced hard-boiled eggs and crumbled bacon into my mouth.

Readers: How does your garden grow? Are you eating from the yard, or even a couple of pots on a deck or windowsill?

 

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16 thoughts on “Bringing in the weeds.”

  1. Did you know that dandelion leaves are best eaten before they flower? The leaves are not bitter. I loved celery leaves until I learned the leaves are where toxins/pesticides are stored. I love how food just pops up at your place.

    Reply
    • I did know that, but the flavor is still a bit much for me. When the leaves go into the boiling bag their flavor melds with others, though.

      Once the celery plants are well-established, some of their leaves will also go into the salad. They have a nice flavor. We don’t use pesticides so residue isn’t an issue here. I can’t find any evidence that toxins/pesticides are “stored” in the leaves, but according to the FDA it’s a good idea to give produce a thorough wash to remove the potential for foodborne illness:

      https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/7-tips-cleaning-fruits-vegetables

      Reply
  2. I am in between homes right now, as I sold mine last year and I’ve been unable to find something to downsize to within my budget. I’m staying with a family member and have not been able to plant small garden this year. So I’ve been going to the local Farm stands and getting my greens from there. Looking forward to 🌽 from one farm in particular, it’s delicious!!

    Reply
    • I miss fresh corn. When I was a kid we could go to a farm about one block away and get corn they’d just pulled. In late summer the farm owners would take out a one-inch-square ad at the bottom of the front page of the newspaper: “SILVER QUEEN. BLEW’S FARM. FAIRTON.” Even now if you say “Silver Queen” in that part of the state, aficionados will sigh.

      Reply
    • One of the English cucumbers is technically ready to go but we’re waiting to harvest until his grandkids can be here. They would eat the whole thing themselves, so DF and I will have to be ready to fight for our share. We do like letting them see where food comes from (besides the supermarket); DF has started a potato bucket for each of them and will take it over once the plants are well-established.

      Reply
  3. We get a produce box every couple of weeks and we get SO much lettuce and we feel the same way you do about lettuce. But we just discovered that we can split the heads in half or quarters and grill them (we use a cast iron griddle on the stove) and we are suddenly not wasting all that lettuce. Good stuff hot or cooled and cut up for the salad.

    Love hearing about your gardening even if I am not currently doing any.

    Reply
  4. Omigosh – your post makes my mouth water! For an alternative to Russian dressing I offer my friend Mary Ellen’s favorite – easy to make & killer taste:
    -3 diced garlic cloves, 1 Tbsp dry mustard, 1/3 c white wine vinegar, 1/3 c water,
    -1.25 tsp salt, 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (I just use cayenne), 1/2 tsp cracked pepper.
    **Mix 1st 4 ingredients in blender ’til smooth.
    **Add next 4 & process on low speed.
    **SLOWLY add oil (so emulsifies) & blend 2-3 minutes.
    **Keeps for weeks in sealed jar in fridge, but doesn’t last that long at my house.
    **If separates just shake to recombine.
    Hope you enjoy! Excuse me now – gotta go make a salad 😉

    Reply
  5. I live in Texas, and my plants are already starting to look a little ragged from the heat.
    We planted two cherry tomatoes and I think we’ve harvested about 25 – 30 pints. We were averaging a pint a day but they are slowing down now. Still a lot of green tomatoes, though, so they’re not done.
    We have two different cucumbers and I’m about to make my second batch of pickles. Even though we are giving cucumbers away, we are having a hard time keeping up with these plants.
    Our bell peppers have been pretty small, and a lot have fallen off before they got much bigger than a grape. Don’t know what’s going on there.
    I am looking forward to growing greens in the fall, as the heat finally killed our spinach and lettuce. I’m going to grow Brussel sprouts for the first time, which is exciting for me.

    Reply
  6. I live in New Jersey and remember Silver Queen corn. I don’t know what they are planting these days but it’s advertised as sweet corn with your choice of white or yellow corn kernels. I always get white and from a farm stand.

    There is nothing like sweet NJ white corn dripping with butter and salted well. Yum! After the corn is planted it has to be knee high by the forth of July.

    Reply

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