Top 5 Favorite Spring Weeds

Introducing my favorite characters in a scene from the Spring Opus 2021. The cast consists of the following:

·         Nettles: tough, aggressive, prickly; smells like the ocean on a warm day which is a cover for its high mineral content; good at quickly establishing boundaries

·         Chickweed: at first glance the dainty white flowers poking out through the smooth, slightly plump deep green leaves and alternating hairy stems radiates a soothing, moistening, coolness. However, this plant is secretly loaded with nutrition and an ability to support the lymph glands.

·         Violet: underneath that cool, sweet, demure exterior is one tough, persistent and abundant grower

·         Dandelion: Cheerful with a hidden bitterness and a super power ability to grow through pavement

·         Burdock: Tall, with deep roots, enormous outspreading leaves, gets around everywhere with ease . Later in life it produces a long stem of showy prickly purple blooms yielding small brown oily seeds.

These herbs are my go-to Spring plants for both food and medicine. They grow as easily in your garden as they do in the  wild. They are all opportunists, all have the ability to thrive in poor growing conditions, seed easily, and most parts of them can be eaten or used. (The exception being Chickweed and Violet roots which are neither edible nor medicinal.)

How to identify? Thanks to the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, she has an updated listing of recommended plant identification books. For those who want to go the foraging route, here is a recommended list for those books.

Chickweed patches appear in my garden and I encourage them. Run out of lettuce or greens for dinner? Pick some Chickweed for a salad. Compared to spinach, they lack that ‘dirt’ tang present in some spinach. They grow abundantly in fertile soil and during cool weather. Once it starts to get hot, they slowly withdraw to the shade in smaller groupings and will sometimes reappear in the Fall. The aerial parts (above ground) are all edible but once they bloom they can get a little fibrous. If you carefully cut off the tops you can continue to harvest for several weeks.

Nettle LOVES to send out runners! They tolerate both shade and sun, though they’re more vigorous in the sun. Harvest the young leaves (may want to use gloves due to the prickles) and cook, dry or freeze them as that gets rid of the stinging component. Per ounce it yields 100 percent of your daily calcium requirement and 60 percent of magnesium as well as silica, potassium, iron and chlorophyll with better availability than dairy and most wild greens. It’s devoid of any antinutrients like oxalic acid. Harvest up until it starts to flower, otherwise it becomes a kidney irritant. The seeds are tiny powerhouses of minerals and can be used in teas or blended with salt. The roots are used with Saw Palmetto and other herbs to help with benign prostatic hypertrophy. The leaves are a mild diuretic so you may not want to take the tea near bedtime. For those who are constitutionally hot and dry, adding some violet leaves, Marshmallow Leaves/Root or Oatstraw can help counter the dryness.

Violets send out their leaves as soon as it starts to warm up. They will often flout a few blooms before the leaves are barely opened. Over the next few weeks they’ll be covered in blossoms. These small abundant flowers grow in shade but also do well in full sun. There are several medicinal ones that grow here in Central Virginia: sweet violet (v. odorata), common blue (v. soroia) and heartease pansy (v. tricolor). The aerial parts of the purple flowers, when used fresh to make vinegar or syrup, create a dynamic purple color. They can be added to smoothies and salads. When dried, they look lovely in a tea and add a cooling, moistening AND nutritive component (calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamin C and carotenoids). The leaves can be harvested throughout the summer though they may be a little more fibrous.

Dandelion’s bright yellow face announces its presence in a look-at-me-I’m-here way! This plant is amazingly strong and can push through asphalt and tolerate being stepped on!  The yellow blossoms go into salads and can be made into wine/mead, syrups or salves. The fresh leaves, best harvested before blooming, can be used in salads, braised for their bitter component or dried and made into a strong diuretic tea (don’t take in late afternoon). The fresh roots can be braised or dried and roasted to use as a coffee substitute. The root goes well in a bitters extract to support healthy digestion.

Burdock seed pods love to attach to fur and hiker’s boots but this liver supportive plant does so many things!  Being a biennial, it’s best harvested in the fall of the first year or the early spring of the second year. The root is mildly bitter  followed with a little sweetness. Like Dandelion, it supports liver detoxification. In addition, it also supports lymph detoxification. It’s a good source of inulin, a complex fiber that supports good gut bacteria. The leaves have been used as bandages. The seeds, though tedious to harvest, are also bitter, support the liver and are supportive for a variety of skin issues.

To give you some ideas of how these can be incorporated into your meals, I have included several recipes that can be accessed here.