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February 7th, 2025
They are coming! All it takes is a warm day in late winter to uncover those gourmet edible greens all around us, still green and growing just beneath that cover of snow. Have you tried any unusual spring greens? Sometimes all it takes is few days of warm spring weather to reveal a flush of new brilliant green growth! When most of us think of salad greens we look to our classic annual veggie crops: a rainbow of lettuces, baby kale, fresh new arugula leaves and sweet or spicy microgreens. But these annual crops are only the TIP of the iceberg! Wild, unusual and unexpected nutrient-dense greens, shoots, and buds are all around us if only we know where to look...
A handful of the less usual greens and sprouts one can grow indoors in winter! Even a simple "sprouting" can be enough to increase the nutrient-density of seeds, beans and greens!
Salad from a Tree: Did you know you can harvest the new young buds or new leaves of certain perennial woody crops: like linden (basswood), mulberry, rose or sassafras? Even the invasive multi-flora rose is edible when leaves are young! Cook the young shoots, try them raw, dry and grind up for adding to soups, or “sprout” the leaves off of pruned dormant tree branches in winter by putting the twigs in water indoors until the tender green leaves emerge ready for your salad or saute! Some of these with exceptional flavor, like new Linden leaves/buds, are highly regarded edibles in cultures across that globe that know their secrets!
Pictured below: The new leaves of Linden also called Basswood. The spring flowers make an exceptional, calming tea. And the roasted seeds that show up in the summer/fall are reported to taste like chocolate!! WHAT?! Yes. Check out this amazing tree that gives all year round.
Nettles: How could I not mention my favorite nutrient-dense wild green? Stinging nettles sound unappetizing (cause of the stinging!), but once they are cooked or dried, the stinging hairs are neutralized leaving you with an exceptional green far surpassing commercial spinach in nutrition that can be used in soup (potato, leek and nettle soup, anyone?), as a tea (exceptional paired with lemon balm or tulsi basil or chamomile!), dried and powdered + added to smoothies, soup, casserole, a matcha latte, whatever you can think of! Nettles are so versatile and they grow in abundance this time of year. Harvest with gloves to avoid the sting, then use immediately or dry on a tray.
Pictured Below: Spring nettles. Harvest the tender young shoots of nettles. Dry them or use them fresh in tea, soup, smoothies, stir fries... literally anywhere you would use a green like spinach. It's a wonderfully nutrient-dense plant. Consider drying and grinding up to make it easy to add to a soup as a thickener or even a matcha nettle latte!
Early shoots from biennial or perennial garden plants: Did you know you can eat the new shoots of many garden plants that overwinter like horseradish (spicy) or sorrel (lemony) or even last year’s forgotten kale (buds are like baby broccoli). Try them out in a salad or stir fry. Plus letting some of these plants bloom in early spring is AWESOME for our native pollinators, including the GORGEOUS tiny sweat bee that comes in a RAINBOW of metallic colors! As well as the bee mimic "flower bee" or hoverfly who is an exceptional tiny protector of our gardens (their young are voracious aphid eaters).
The buds and flowers of those broccoli family plants like mustards and overwintering kale are both tasty edibles and great options for pollinators in spring!
Nutrient-dense weed greens: Young leaves and flowers of weeds like dandelion, violet, chickweed, cleavers, and dead nettle are excellent eatings for a new spring salad! Eat them fresh in a salad, add to a fruit smoothie, juice them or dry them. Just be mindful of where you harvest these exceptional micronutrient accumulators… avoid areas with contaminated soil (sidewalk cracks, roadways, alongside buildings with lead paint). One of my favorite places to harvest these AWESOME greens are farm field or woodland edges.
Pictured from left to right (below): New and tasty dandelion greens, protein-rich and edible violet greens and fresh cleavers also called bedstraw (great for juicing and also a weird relative of the coffee plant... yes, the very same tropical + caffeinated beverage so many of us drink!)
Picture below: Chickweed. This plant hardly deserve the title "weed" but such is the fate of many useful plants! It's edible, nutrient-dense, has anti-inflammatory properties so can be made into a healing salve (like the better known aloe!) and is exceptionally hardy. It also bears the name "Starflower" which it gets from the shape of the flowers and its general awesomeness, of course!
Garlic mustard: Not just edible, but the leaves are VERY high in vitamin C! Cut the garlicky bitterness by blending it with oil in a lovely garlic mustard pesto. Eat the flowers, use the seeds as a mustard-like spice or dig up and grate the spicy roots like wasabi!! Exceptional bitter green for stir fries paired with garlic, hot oil and soy sauce. And it’s invasive so eat as much as you want!
Pictured below: spring foraged finds. Wild garlic (left), brown oyster mushrooms (bottom), garlic mustard (top) and Japanese knotweed shoots (right). A perfect fast harvest for adding to lunch in spring.
Japanese knotweed: Another edible invasive with fat spring shoots that are easy to SNAP off and use in cooking. They are citrusy and tangy and people use them like rhubarb or they can be added to a stir fry with fresh asian greens from the garden. Or used as edible straws by kids OR made into crazy gourmet desserts like Japanese Knotweed Sorbet, Mousse, Fruit leather or Sweet Pickles like The Forager Chef likes to do…
Wild Shoots: Two fun new shoots I have enjoyed discovering are Common Milkweed and Pokeweed. Both are exceptional spring vegetables, but need to be harvested correctly and prepared right (boil in 2 changes of water!) to enjoy. But who knew the young shoots of these plants could be SO good?! Boil the young shoots in 2 changes of water to remove the bitterness and enjoy! Pokeweed shoots must be young (too old and they won’t taste good) and don’t confuse milkweed shoots with their cousin Dogbane (dogbane has reddish stems and will stay bitter even after being cooked)… Samuel Thayer has some great long articles on both these plants if you are interested!
An April harvest: Young pokeweed shoots (left), golden oyster mushrooms, wild spring garlic, and new dandelion greens (right).
Onion Grass and Wild Garlic: A truly fun one to eat is onion grass! Growing in clumps in the woods, onion grass and wild garlic shoots are everywhere. They make a great seasoning to soups and salads as well as being fun for kids to eat while hiking (if nothing else, onion grass gives them the dreaded “onion breath” to terrorize their friends and family with!). You can also dig up the tiny bulbs for adding whole to soups or stir fries. Onion grass has hollow stems while wild garlic has flat stems (not hollow) that looks more like leeks. Rub the leaves between your hands to ensure you get the distinctive "allium" (onion or garlic) smell for a positive ID.
Those listed here are just a few of the slightly less than usual greens that I like that are rich in flavor, nutrition and grow in unlikely places. What unusual greens have you tried or would recommend? Any recipes YOU want to share? Tell me more at Allison (at) TheSparrowUnderground.com.
Resources:
Nettle chips from The Black Forager: https://www.tiktok.com/@rose_under_cypresses/video/7092883877852826926
Adam Haritan on Garlic Mustard -Great short video on 4 things to know about the edible garlic mustard! https://learnyourland.com/4-things-you-didnt-know-about-garlic-mustard/
Other Ways to Eat Japanese Knotweed by the Forager Chef - https://foragerchef.com/category/wild-green-recipes/japanese-knotweed/
Samuel Thayer on Common Milkweed : https://www.foragersharvest.com/newsletter/milkweed-a-truely-remarkable-wild-vegetable
Samuel Thayer Chapter on "Pokeweed" in his book Incredible Wild Edibles
The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival by Katrina Blair - 'A forager's guide to ultimate food security, including 100 nutrient-dense recipes for food, medicine, and self-care.'
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