Time to eat your WEEDS
They have more vitamin A than spinach, more vitamin C than tomatoes and are probably the richest herbal source of vitamin K, which helps build strong bones.
Hans Wieland lists the benefits with the assurance of a man who regularly encourages others not to beat the weeds in their gardens, but to cultivate and eat them.
He works and teaches at the Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co Leitrim, a sort of hedge school for self-sufficiency that aims to instil a greater understanding of food and where it comes from.
Since 1997, the centre has been running up to 100 courses a year in everything from foraging and raw foods to herbs for medicinal use and masterclasses on weeds.
Which brings us back to dandelions and why it might be an idea to allow them some space in your garden.
“Anyone can grow weeds,” says Hans. “In fact, the weeds won’t even ask your permission. No instructions are needed, no seed-sowing, no trays or pots or compost. Just take a bit of a risk and see it as an adventure.”
All cultivated vegetables were once wild plants or weeds, he says, advising people to get to know the weed and its growing pattern and to cultivate only those weeds that you will eat.
Start with a few weeds, he says.
His top selection include dandelion, ground elder, burdock, chickweed, hairy bittercress and stinging nettles.
“Let noxious weeds like nettle and dandelion grow around your garden or at the edge or in your lawn. Tolerate ‘easy’ weeds like chickweed or fat hen in your beds. I let chickweed grow with cabbage or in the polytunnel with tomatoes,” he says.
Then, when you are ready to harvest, prepare for a nutritious feast — most weeds outperform vegetables in vitamin, protein and mineral content.
For instance, vegetables have, on average, 49 mirco grams of Vitamin C per 100g of edible portion whereas as weeds have 210mg. Weeds also have high levels of important minerals like potassium, calcium, manganese, iron and magnesium.
So how do you serve them up after harvest? Dandelions are very good served in a salad or made into a tea or lemonade.
Ground elder, though considered by gardeners one of the most noxious weeds, is good in soup or as a replacement for spinach, says Hans.
He says burdock is great for its edible roots and can be slow-roasted like parsnips. “Or try my wife Gaby’s recipe: stir-fried burdock roots with baked fish and a green salad.”
Chickweed and hairy bittercress are good as salad leaves; nettle leaves make an iron-rich soup and nettle seeds can be considered the Irish ginseng.
Maybe it’s time to put away the trowel and try harvesting your weeds instead.
For more on Eat your Weeds and a newly designed Food Adventures Tours, see www.theorganiccentre.ie
Raw in salads — dandelion, chickweed, fat hen, hairy bittercress are particularly good. Cooked in soups — try nettles or ground elder. In smoothies and juices — just about any edible weed is good in a smoothie or juice. Stir fry — use burdock Lemonade — give dandelion lemonade a go. Put about 25 dandelion flowers into a litre of water, add some honey and the juice of one lemon. Cover and leave for 24 hours. Then strain and serve chilled.
