Inland from the sea sand

The ocean’s voice accompanied by shorebirds can still be heard as I leave the beach and head into a flat marshy area to forage where a wide variety of plants can be gathered for food and medicinal usage. Just in the above photo we see a few different mustards, peas and Goosefoot family members which are excellent tasting nutritional foods, some though need to be eaten in moderation and require special preparation. Today I’ll just mention a few of my favorites.

Here is a view above the bank showing a large bed of Beach pea – Lathyrus japonicus.

 

Not far away where there is visible sand we see some Silverweed – Potentilla anserina.

Seabeach Sandwort – Honkenya peploides is a nice edible which can be eaten raw cut into bite size pieces and also stir fried with other veggies. This plant usually grounds close to shore or where there is bare sand often in small mounds 3 to 4 feet across, it belongs to the Pink Family which also includes Chickweed. If you are lucky enough to find the earliest stems you will taste a salty & juicy morsel which looks like giant bean sprouts, once the straight stem sections turn yellowish brown the stems will be to woody and dry to eat, the ones in photos haven’t flowered yet and with some rain would remain edible for several weeks.

Sea Rocket – Cakile edentula also goes well in salads when cut in tiny pieces, larger pieces for stir fries, it is a bold salty mustard. This plant is often dominate in flat sandy areas along the coast.

I’ll leave you with this photo which showcase the wide openness of this type of foraging area which are very pleasant to be in on a breezy summer day. ciao

 

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Sea Rocket

Sea-rocket (Cakile edentula), this member of the mustard family is one of my favourite wild plants  for summer salads and stir-fry.  It is best to dice the fleshy sea-rocket leaves up into small pieces as they have a horseradish flavour only milder and saltier. This plant needs to be experimented with a bit as I see few recipes around for it and it seems a natural for fresh salsa and possibly as a pesto ingredient.

Sea-rocket often grows in patches well out onto sandy beaches, usually being the closest plant to the high tide line so it is very salt tolerant.

A healthy patch of Sea-rocket. This plant grows on both the east and west coast of N.A and also in some areas along the Great Lakes

Here are some (un-tasty) sea-rocket seed sprouts, I suspect only one sprout will likely survive here packed this close together, but luckily for many of these seedlings they will be coming home with me to be potted to produce seeds. These sprouts are from the bottom half of a 2 part seed pod as they remained attached to the parent plant and become buried in the shifting sand over the winter,  the upper pods on these plants are somewhat rocket shaped and often separate from the parent plant and are transported from the beach to  shores possibly great distances away. Oddly the sprouts and older leaves of this annual are not near as enjoyable to eat as the leaves in between these 2 stages of growth.

Just to the right of the sea-rocket seedlings are a few (darker green) Orach plants which are another good seaside edible which I’ll do a post on later.