Weed Cloth Fail

...ating from nearly fifteen years ago. It’s time to declare a truce with the weeds. As Gerard Manly Hopkins says in his poem “Inversnaid,” What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wilderness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. A programming note: my mom is still in the hospital. I’m putting the podcast on hold temporarily and posts will be light for the foreseeable future. I app...

Read…

Broadleaf Plantain

Today we introduced some weeds into our garden, planting some broadleaf plantain (Plantago major) seeds that we collected on our bike camping and wild food excursion with Christopher Nyerges. As Nyerges noted, this is one of those plants that Martha Stewart hates, and that makes the purveyors of toxic herbicides and lawn care products rich. You can’t eat your lawn folks. You can, however, eat broadleaf plantain. The young leaves are edible raw, b...

Read…

Without Merit: poison in your compost

...der the brand names Merit and Forefront. This herbicide is used to control weeds such as thistle, knapweed and yellow starthistle. The problem is that aminopyralid survives the digestive systems of animals pastured on land sprayed with it, as well as compost piles made from their manure. Most other herbicides break down eventually, but this stuff sticks around. An organic farmer using compost contaminated by aminopyralid could lose crops and organ...

Read…

Least Favorite Plant: Asparagus Fern (Asparagus setaceus)

...extend the concept to the plant world? But we’re not going to rant about “weeds”, which Ralph Waldo Emerson defined as, “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” As active foragers we’ve found virtues in what most people think of as weeds, plants like broadleaf plantain and stinging nettles. Instead we’ll focus our horticultural wrath elsewhere. Asparagus Fern (Asparagus setaceus) is the scourge of my backyard gardening existence and...

Read…

Mallow (Malva parviflora) an Edible Friend

...h anticipation, since it’s the best time of year to forage for wild edible weeds. We’ll highlight a few of these edible weeds in the next few months beginning today with Mallow (Malva parviflora also known as cheeseweed because the shape of the fruit resembles a round of cheese), which grows in great abundance in lawns and parkways. Malva parviflora does not have an especially strong or exciting taste, but does make a pleasant addition to salads a...

Read…