Welcome to week 10 - the halfway point! What I think is so remarkable about this csf is that you have already have had the opportunity to sample nearly 50 different wild edibles so far! (They are all listed below.) That is fifty new foods which grow right around your home that you may never have even tried…you have now prepared wonderful meals with! I think that is awesome!

This week’s share includes:

• lambsquarters *NEW
• day lily buds *NEW
• lady’s thumb *NEW
• milk weed buds *NEW
• yellow dock seeds *NEW
  
• mallow leaves
• purslane

Day lily buds and flowers

Day lily buds are (yet another) one of my very favorite edibles. My favorite way to eat these is to saute them in olive oil with garlic and tamari. They cook fast…in 5 minutes you’ll have a delicious addition to any meal (I especially like to serve with brown rice, tofu, greens, that sort of thing.) The flowers are also edible: I usually pull the petals apart and add them (and the stamens) to salad. Also the old wilted flowers can be dried and later added to soups. They are very flavorful and this is quite a popular food in Asia.

lamb's quarters

Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium album) is excellent raw or cooked. Some people refer to this as wild spinach. It can be used anywhere you use spinach. I like it in salads, smoothies, stir-fries and soups.

lady's thumb

Lady’s Thumb (Polygonum persicaria) is another edible that is popping up now. Sometimes the leaves have a darkened area in the middle that people call “the lady’s thumbprint”, which is where the plant got it’s common name. It has a cluster of pink flowers. Both the leaves and flower are edible either raw (salad, smoothies) or cooked in stir-fries or salad. It is in the buckwheat family (like Japanese knotweed) and you’ll notice the stalk has little “joints” like the knotweed did, which is reflected by the genus name “Polygonum”.

milkweed

The best way I know to eat the unopened milkweed blossoms are to steam them and serve with butter. We harvest milkweed blossoms very sparingly…these are a native plant that is very important to the monarch butterfly. It is where she lays her eggs and the little caterpillars grow eating milkweed flowers. They make their chrysalis on this plant and emerge to monarchs.

yellow dock seeds still on the stalk

Yellow Dock Seeds - you’ll start seeing these bundles of brown seeds along the roadside now. They are high in protein and very easy to incorporate into cooking. Strip the seeds from the stalk (we’ve done that for you.) You can use them as is in oatmeal or bread, or grind the seeds into flour and incorporate with your regular flour. Here is a recipe shared on our facebook page by our facebook friend Susan Dummet Martin from 2010:

Yellow Dock Seed Crackers, photo credit: Susan Dummet Martin

• ‎1 cup dock seed flour(use blender, remove stems and leaves)
  
• 1 cup whole wheat flour,
  
• 1 tea salt,
• between 3/4 and 1 cup water.

Knead, roll thin, cut, bake on well oiled cookie sheet 350 oven. Turn once while baking. Cool on racks. Easy! To me tastes like well done deep-fried zucchini. Great with cheese. Very high fiber. My dog loves them too!

~ Recipe by Susan Dummet Martin, submitted by facebook

Remember: Next week we will be away and there is NO SHARE PICKUP!!

The next pickup will be Thursday, June 21.

And now here is a list of all the amazing wild foods you’ve had so far in this csf:

1. Dryad’s Saddle mushroom
2. Morel Mushroom
3. Dried Reishi mushrooms
4. Nettles
5. Deadnettles/purple archangel
6. Garlic Mustard
7. Onion Grass
8. onion grass bulbs
9. Creeping Charlie
10. broad leaf dock
11. yellow dock
12. cleavers
13. violet flowers
14. Japanese knotweed
15. violet leaves
16. cattail stalks
17. cattail flowers
18. chickweed
19. wild mint
20. peppermint
21. apple mint
22. lemon balm
23. catnip
24. ramps
25. trout lily
26. burdock leaf stalks
27. red clover flowers and leaves
28. black locust flowers
29. white clover flowers
30. white clover leaves
31. burdock root
32. plantain leaves
33. wild carrots
34. day lily tubers
35. chicory leaves
36. chicory root
37. mulberries
38. serviceberries/June berries
39. mugwort
40. comfrey leaves
41. purslane
42. mallow
43. quickweed
44. wood sorrel
45. lady’s thumb
46. lambs quarters
47. day lily buds
48. milk weed buds
49. yellow dock seeds

WOW! That’s a lot of new stuff!!!! I hope you’ve enjoyed the share so far. I also hope that with the repetition and use of some of these common edibles that you feel more confident going out and collecting on your own.

Have a great week with these lovely edibles. Have a nice week off, and we’ll see you again on Thursday, June 21.

yellow dock seeds shaped into a heart

Love and yellow dock seeds,

Melissa