It’s the time of year when all the greens are springing from the earth, making themselves available to our sluggish winter bodies. Many common “weeds” in Victoria are in fact edible and highly nutritious wild greens. In TCM these wild greens clear toxins, benefit the liver and cool stagnant heat. Below are my favorite edible “weeds” + a few recipes to enjoy them.
Miners Lettuce - Claytonia perfoliata - miners lettuce is a common ground cover crop, used as a nitrogen fixer in many community gardens & permaculture sites, though it is a native species that grows wild at the edges of parks, forests and seaside cliffs. It has a taste and texture similar to spinach. Sometimes referred to as winter purslane it got its common name Miners Lettuce from stories of gold rush miners eating it to stave of scurvy. Thus you might have guessed it’s high in vitamin C. Tasty eaten fresh in salads or loaded into this recipe for green soup.
Chickweed - Stellaria media - A member of the carnation family, chickweed has beautiful tiny white flowers which are edible along with its leaves and stems. An introduced species that has thrived in this climate, you will find her in forests, over grown gardens and along parking lot edges. She packs a punch for a tiny weed with calcium, magnesium and (I just learned) 83x more iron than spinach! I’ve also heard stories of chickweed being used an an anti-inflammatory, as well as for skin and digestive health. You can enjoy Chickweed raw in salad, infuse into a vinegar, or pulse into a paste in a food processor and freeze for a boost in the colder months.
Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale - Ol’ faithful weed, beloved of the honeybees, if you can avoid mowing her please do! Leaf, flower and root are all edible. The leaves are known as Pu Gong Ying in the TCM herbal canon - which are used to clear heat, dissipate nodules, detox, & promote lactation. Too bitter for me in salads but quite nice in wild pestos. The flowers have a ton of pollen and wild yeast which infuse well into vinegar, wild sodas and mead. The roots are used as liver medicine - but if you can wait until later in the summer and early fall when the energy descends back into the earth they will be even more potent. I like to use the roots for making these spiced bitters in the fall.