That’s chickweed in the picture – also known as winterweed because it was a mainstay of the Mediaeval diet through the winter. It’s fatal if eaten by the kilogram, but trust me, you wouldn’t want to.
Last night I went to the supermarket and in a moment of weakness spent the best part of £4 on a magazine that purported to contain an article on eating wild salad (or weeds as I call them). Having been talking about them all Sunday, and forcing them on members of the public I thought I’d like to learn a bit more. As I like reading off paper I thought I’d treat myself.
Turns out I needn’t have bothered, I seem to know more than the writer. Considering that I’m a mere novice compared to the dozens, if not 100’s, of people who write about foraging on the internet I feel seriously cheated. It took me two minutes to find several better articles on the web this morning.
As the title says, it wasn’t just the salad that was wild.
I’m going to start a new page on the blog about foraging. There may be one or two unprofessional entries, because I’m not at all sure I want to eat sweethearts/cleavers/goosegrass/stickyweed or whatever regional variation you call it. It looks stringy and it has hooks on. If you’re so interested in it YOU eat it.
Looking forward to your foraging section!
I was thinking I’d give chickweed a go until I read your post. Thanks for saving me the effort!
Goosegrass doesn’t seem very promising, but then neither do nettles. I like ground elder (of which we have a disturbingly large amount) but I can’t seem to convince the rest of the family, who are of the opinion that they have too much flavour.
Do you do requests? We also have (amongst others) a superabundance of green alkanet, bindweed, comfrey, creeping jenny and yellow loosestrife – all very pretty, but a bit anti-social with their neighbours. (You can probably tell that our garden is supremely tidy! I keep thinking of others to add but I’ll stop there I think) Posts about good uses for any of those would be very gratefully received. (Wild poppies, bluebells, aquilegia, foxgloves and teasels have self-seeded very widely also, but they aren’t such bullies as the others and are very welcome.)
Chop the comfrey up and add it to your compost as an accelerator. Just don’t decimate the whole patch!
I look forward to reading your foraging page! God knows I have weeds a plenty!
I’ve eaten cleavers. They’re not exactly a taste sensation, and best not eaten raw, but they’re fine as part of a stew or smoothie.