Don’t kill, spray, tear up, or destroy the weeds in your garden, yard, and fence rows. Many of them are actually highly-regarded, widely-used, and extremely-valuable medicinal herbs! What could be easier than growing an herb garden with no effort? Of course, you’ll have to harvest your edible weeds, but you would do that anyhow: it’s called weeding.
Spring is an especially fertile time for harvesting your edible weeds – roots and all – and turning them into medicines. For the next few posts we will be discussing tips on how to find, harvest, prepare, and use of common edible weeds that probably already grow around you.
A field guide is helpful for positively identifying your weeds. The one I like best is Bradford Angier's Field Guide to Wild Plants.
Shepherds’s purse (Capsella bursa pastoris) is an annual in the mustard family. Shepherd's-purse is a winter annual broadleaf weed, but may grow all year in cool coastal areas of California. It is common throughout California to about 7600 feet (2300 m). It inhabits agricultural land and other disturbed areas. Its fruit has a peppery flavor and is sometimes added as a spice to salad greens.
However, shepherd’s-purse seeds and leaves contain compounds called glucosinolates, which cause digestive irritation when consumed in quantity.
Cut the top half of the plant when it has formed its little heart-shaped “purses” (seed pods) and make a tincture (with alcohol), which you can use to stop bleeding. Midwives and women who bleed heavily during their period praise its prompt effectiveness. Gypsies claim it works on the stomach and lungs as well. A dose is 1 dropperful (1ml); which may be repeated up to four times a day.
Cleavers (Gallium aparine) is a persistent, sticky plant which grows profusely in abandoned lots and the edges of cultivated land. The entire plant is used to strengthen lymphatic activity. Cut the top two-thirds of each plant while it is in flower (or setting seeds) and use alcohol to make a tincture which relieves tender, swollen breasts, PMS symptoms, and allergic reactions. A dose is 15-25 drops (.5 – 1 ml); repeated as needed.
Spring is an especially fertile time for harvesting your edible weeds – roots and all – and turning them into medicines. For the next few posts we will be discussing tips on how to find, harvest, prepare, and use of common edible weeds that probably already grow around you.
A field guide is helpful for positively identifying your weeds. The one I like best is Bradford Angier's Field Guide to Wild Plants.
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| Shepard's purse seedling |
Shepherds’s purse (Capsella bursa pastoris) is an annual in the mustard family. Shepherd's-purse is a winter annual broadleaf weed, but may grow all year in cool coastal areas of California. It is common throughout California to about 7600 feet (2300 m). It inhabits agricultural land and other disturbed areas. Its fruit has a peppery flavor and is sometimes added as a spice to salad greens.
However, shepherd’s-purse seeds and leaves contain compounds called glucosinolates, which cause digestive irritation when consumed in quantity.
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| Mature Shepard's purse |
