A few spring flowers and greens

This Purple Trillium is to rare in my area for me to eat its leaves.

There is one common Trillium locally, the Painted Trillium which you could gather 1 of its 3 leafs from when it is young and shaped like a spear as shown by the Purple Trillium with its red stem behind the Dutchman’s breeches in this photo.

 

Marsh Marigold is considered edible when properly cooked though I haven’t try it, in fact this is the first time I’ve noticed this plant flowering. Raw it is known to be an irritant and quite toxic.

This plant has interesting looking flowerbuds which I will also be not eating due to its rarity here and conflicting info on the safest parts and ways to eat this plant, but again this is a new plant I have no experience with except this encounter right here. I was driving by when I noticed these earliest of bright yellow flowers which I wasn’t expecting to see in a coastal swamp.

Now for some greens, ground elder and orpine in the basket. The tastiest part of the ground elder for my taste buds are the long leaf stems on the lightest green colored plants with barely unfolding leaves.

Here is a nice one, this patch covers several acres and you can harvest a lot in a short time. I first starting eating this plant just last year after reading an excellent post on Alan Carter’s blog — Of Plums and Pignuts

Usually you will find at least some of these young light greens popping up throughout the summer and right now about 30% of ground elder here is still light green with juicy leaf stems. This area I suspect started as a small patch of ornamental variegated ground elder 50 to 100 hundreds years ago as there are still a few at the front of this abandon farm yard though over time it has vastly spread and reverted to the old original which is known to be quite vigorous and a well known food and medicine for several previous centuries in Europe. Today in many places Aegopodium podagraria is consider quite invasive and very unpopular though if eaten at the right stage it suddenly appears to be a very healthy good food, funny how the goodness of nature doesn’t change, just our thoughts on it do.  ciao

Goutweed finally dawned on me

 

Been in a bit of a fog like the sky this morning over Goutweed as I often wondered if I just haven’t notice this plant around as it is well known for being an edible and medicinal, invasive plant. A recent wordpress post on (62nd Parallel North) really woke me up to what this plant looks like in its spring growth and since that post I’ve noticed Goutweed (Aegopodium  podagraria) in 2 recreational areas a short walk from my home. Unfortunately these locations were close to roads within the city and not a wise place to gather food.

It is -2 degrees C this morning at 6.00 am and the Goutweed in this area has been touched by frost, though the good news is I pass by close to this country area most week days, so I’ve found a good source to gather later today and also in the future if I like this plant.

Goutweed is a member of the Carrot family which has some of the most poisonous plants on the planet, so unless you are really familiar with the poisonous ones like Water Hemlock and others, you best have an expert verify this plant before trying it.

I stopped by this guy’s place figuring he would know his carrots even better than me, but he wasn’t talking so I looked around the net some more to get as much info on this plant as possible and I ended up arriving at another wordpress blog along the way which was (Of Plums and Pignuts) where I received some valuable tips on harvesting and cooking.

Work is over now and it is 19 degrees C at 5.00 pm, quite a change and the Goutweed has made a nice recovery.

Here is a look at the young shiny growth I gathered for my initial encounter with Goutweed, tasting the young stems raw I found them better tasting than raw caraway and sweet cicely greens, 2 other members of the carrot family, so Goutweed’s first impression is good. Cooked in the frying pan this plant is very good and it appears new young shoots will keep rising for several months during the year, this hardy invasive has a lot of potential. No wonder this plant has a long history of usage throughout Europe and Asia for thousands of years. ciao