Wild Weeds and Seasonal Greens

Just finished teaching a folk school class on Wild Weeds and Seasonal Greens at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Arkansas.

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Just finished teaching a folk school grade on Wild Weeds and Seasonal Greens at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View , Arkansas . Friend and herbal age group , Tina Marie Wilcox , and I taught this class together . We forage for weeds and combine them with some seasonal herbs and green to make tasty victual : Spring Greens Soup , Salsa Verde with Vegetable Crudites and Salad of Wild Weeds , Seasonal Herbs and Greens .

It is of utmost importance to properly identify barbaric grass before consuming them – go out with an experienced instructor or forager and use more than one guidebook for identification . After viewing a powerpoint of some wild edibles , the class correct out with our baskets and pruners for harvest home , in and around the Heritage Herb Garden .

Of course , bushed nettle and henbit are easy to spot with their purple bloom and we all recognise dandelions . Most of the chickweed ( Stellaria media ) is already bud here or cover with their tiny , blanched starlike flush . We reap some heart - shaped violet leaves though little – no blooms yet . plantain tree is already up and get salubrious green foliage . From the herb garden we gather the wan green leaves ofmacheor corn salad , and bright greenish leave of parsley , Anthriscus cereifolium and sorrel which is already show . The redbuds are budded up and we picked some bud , though they are n’t as flavourous as the lemony tart flowers when they spread .

We rooted out some evening primula ( Oenthera biennis ) and wild onions and then we went over to the area under a huge vitex that had wild potato vine ( sometimes call air spud ) raise all over it last fall . This vine , Dioscorea batatas , makes aerial Tuber that descend from the vines when the leaf do . So we dug around under the vitex with a labour branching and gathered a basket full of the small rootlets / tubers to add to our soup instead of potatoes .

Then we headed to the outdoor area behind the herbaceous plant studio , where we classify through all of our baskets and made sight of each single herb on a mesa . harvest home and categorisation are fun … the washing of all of the herb and green is probably the most ho-hum and time - consuming part of preparing the botanical for the kitchen . A salad spinner make this task easier ; I would n’t be without one in my kitchen as I use it day by day . We also had a turgid amount of topically grown spinach , blowball greens , Indian mustard , kale and collard greens .

Then we carried our premium to the schoolroom , where we stemmed some of the big leafy green , and chop and prepped the herbaceous plant and green for our recipes . We machinate a green soup , beginning with a base of Allium cepa , garlic , wild potato Tuber , a grated carrot , and then added stock , shredded , dense leafy greens and finally the more warm weeds and leafy vegetable . We pounded asalsa verdein our braggart mortar and pestle , using mostly dotty weeds and herbs along with breadcrumbs and pot of garlic , olive oil , saltiness and pepper . And finally we made a lovely weed and herbaceous plant salad – we saved all of the mache for this and some spinach and distribute the purple flowers of dead nettle and henbit on top with some dandelion flower flower petal . We dressed it with my favorite , simple , Little Black Dressing ( known in our home as LBD ) .

Our last recipe of the day , we created a chickweed and calendula salve , made from just - dried chickweed and calendula flower petal organically raise in the herb gardens . for each student to take home . We find it is grand for our peel , chapped lips or hands and bug bites . A middling dear day was had by all – the perfect way to kvetch off saltation !

Look for recipes in next blog . Thanks to Jan Turner and Sandy Puckett for sharing exposure . Happy Spring !

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