Harvest blanch and freeze Dandelion Greens

[jpak]

Vitamins A C and K

Exposure of your skin to the sun produces vitamin D.

Your neighbors will think you are nuts and will leave you alone.

Harvest the yellow flowers for Dandelion Wine (if you have the sugar).

That is all.

[cilla4progress]

1. I'm getting ready to

forage!!

[jpak]

3. And no handling fresh veggies in a crowded grocery store

[MineralMan]

2. And let some of them bloom - for the bees.

Our front lawn is a field of dandelions every early Spring. Bumblebees and other bees show up. Then, before they go to seed, I mow them. The bees need them early in the Spring to survive.

[cilla4progress]

6. For sure!

I kick myself for all those years I eradicated them! My then toddler daughter knew...she didn't understand why we would weed out the pretty yellow flowers.

Such bullshit we've been fed.

[2naSalit]

9. They are invasive

and have helped eradicate a lot of our indigenous flora in my area.

[MineralMan]

10. So are turf grasses. Invasive species, one and all.

Dandelions feed bees in early Spring, when food is hard to come by.

Turf grasses feed nothing.

Sorry, but I disagree. My "lawn" is a mixture of grasses and weeds. I mow it, and the green stuff is dominant, so I call it a "lawn."

Between creeping charlie, wild violet, and plantain, I'm hoping to get rid of the turf grass altogether.

[cwydro]

12. Same here.

Out on my farm I let things grow pretty wild except for the trails I mow for the dogs and I to walk.

Here in town, I’m planning on turning my backyard into a wildflower paradise for butterflies, bees, birds, and so on.

Growing up in NC, seeing dandelions was one of the first signs of spring. I knew soon school would be out! I love their sunny little faces.

[MineralMan]

18. Fortunately, in my neighborhood,

very few homeowners strive for lawns that are single-species grassy turf. Nobody has the time nor the inclination to maintain a lush lawn and keep it looking perfect. So, the grassy areas in the front yards of houses are a mixture of plants. We're all happy to mow the green stuff and let it be whatever it is.

There are a couple of houses on my block with well-maintained turf, but the owners hire lawn companies to keep them that way. Fortunately, none of them are adjacent to my weedlawn, so I don't get a lot of complaints about my mixed greens.

[cwydro]

21. My kind of neighborhood!

I’m the busiest in my yard on my block, but I have the time and love to garden.

But I can’t imagine fussing with grass seeding, turf or all that stuff.

[jpak]

16. "English" Plantain is also edible

Eat 'em up

[MineralMan]

19. It is, yes. I don't eat it, but I know it's edible.

I don't eat dandelions, either, although I have tried the greens and flowers a time or two. It's all just part of what grows in my yard. I mow it to keep it short.

One thing about dandelions, though, that I find interesting: If you mow a dandelion lawn, the flowers end up growing near the ground, rather than on tall stalks. By mowing, you select for shorter stalks, and the plant adjusts its growth pattern to suit. We don't start mowing here until the first crop of dandelions have bloomed, so the stalks are tall. After a couple of mowings, the flowers form close to the ground and never get tall.

I find that fascinating.

BTW, the flowers from wild violets look very pretty on a salad of field greens. They're edible, too.

[jpak]

26. Natural Selection and adaptation in your yard

That Darwin guy was on to something

[MineralMan]

27. Sort of, I suppose. Except it's the same plant

that grows flowers on shorter stalks after mowing. I think the adaptation probably comes from animal grazing, helping the plant to survive by growing shorter flower stalks when cropped by animals. Sort of a built-in adaptation within the plant's own life cycle.

Each spring, I try to mow after the first dandelion bloom, but before the seeds develop. So, the plant flowers again, in an attempt to reproduce. That second flower growth doesn't get mowed off, and generally manages to go to seed. Very clever.

[2naSalit]

30. LAst time I had my own place

I got rid of all the grass. At my current dwelling, there's grass but also big garden area and the rest of the three acres is natural vegetation.

Out here in the Rocky Mountains, we have to fight invasive exotics all the time and we're loosing the battle because of lawns, seeds carried in camping gear and wheel wells of vehicles that come from elsewhere and aquatics including milfoil and quagga mussels in our lakes and some streams. It's bad enough that we have all these goddamned cows and the diseases they brought to the area like the brucella virus which humans now wrongly persecute the bison over though the elk have it too and they travel further than the bison do. Loss of native vegetation in this area is detrimental to the wildlife, flora and fauna which also have to survive we humans and diseases we brought here.

You can have you dandelions in the Mississippi watershed but please don't bring that stuff here. We have lots of indigenous pollinators here if we would stop killing them it would be a plus. The European bumble bees are exotics as well.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

4. Ahhh, yes the foraging season...

Dandelion, prunella vulgaris, meadowsweet, comfrey, mullien, yarrow, bee balm. That’s just some of the medicinal herbs all growing in the yard. No chemicals, (fertilizers, pesticides...) for at least 20 years. No traffic pollution.

My neighbors actually did think I was a little off...at first! Crawling around my yard on my knees harvesting medicinals....till they tried the “teas” that kept their colds away, softened the pain of sore muscles, etc.

[packman]

5. Back in the day -

My mother and my two other brothers would forage for young dandelion greens. I can recall crawling along on a neighbors lawn and pulling/cutting those tender greens. Mother would cherish them like they were green gold. For the life of me, I cannot recall, though, what she made with them and fed us.

[jpak]

8. And Japanese Knotweed!

[cwydro]

15. Rec for a great thread!

Cheered me right up from my cabin fever!

[jpak]

20. Getting my seeds started today

Dandelions and ramen noodles will nourish me until I can harvest the good stuff.

[handmade34]

7. the beautiful Dandelion flowers can be enjoyed...

pop off the head when in full bloom... rinse off, dip in egg (or whatever liquid you desire), coat with seasoned flour (or what have you) and fry in oil... pretty much like fried mushrooms... you can dip them in sauce

they are really very good

[mainer]

11. Seriously? Dandelion fritters?

I've never heard of such a thing -- I'm going to try them!

[handmade34]

29. yes serious

use a seasoning and dip as you would any other type small fritter... yes they are very good

[cwydro]

14. Interesting.

That sounds really intriguing.

[handmade34]

31. and plentiful

enough food to last a long time (even with keeping enough out there in the yard for the bees)

lots of good wild food as long as one knows enough about what is non-poisonous...

another of our favorites is Japanese Knotweed:


https://foragerchef.com/japanese-knotweed/

[2naSalit]

32. I think I'll try that.

I use the roots for medicine and the leaves for salad, great with pumpkin seed oil dressing. My mentor and I used to go out and gather what we called "weed salad" and have wonderful lunches and dinners with her husband, daughter and guests who showed up at meal time.

If harvesting leaves to eat fresh, bet to get them from plants that have not started to flower, they could be very bitter after they flower.

[handmade34]

35. ah...

the days of wild food meals!! I have just played with it of late but may be more serious this season... one of my favorites is tiger lily flowers... delicious and brightens up any salad

[2naSalit]

37. Also, nasturtiums are edible, flower and leaf...

a nice peppery heat and very pretty, violets are like alfalfa sprouts. There's also a weed called Lamb's quarters that is very good too. You can use t in salads fresh or you can cook it. I forget the nutrients it has, I just use it. There is another weed that looks a lot like it and it's not so good for you. My buddy got confused while picking them and got a fair amount of the wrong stuff and made a soup he was so proud of... until it made me sick. All the guys said it didn't bother them but they have cast iron stomachs!

A quick search on Utoob will bring up a bunch of videos about how to identify the plant. Well worth watching one or two.

[cwydro]

13. What's dandelion wine like?

Sounds like a great idea!

[jpak]

24. My first attempt was an unintentional success

Got greedy and used 8 pounds of sugar.

High alchohol content but a lot of unfermented sugar.

Tried to carbonate in bottle but no success.

The first year it was like a floral MD-20.

By the 3rd year it was like the best Portuguese Amontalago you can imagine.

[cwydro]

25. I'll have to look up a recipe.

Sounds good.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

17. My Dad used to bring sassafras home,

and make sassafras tea, it was pretty good!

[MineralMan]

22. My grandmother did that, too.

Later, though, sassafras got a bad reputation for some reason. You can't buy it so much any more.

From the Wikipeda article on sassafras:

Sassafras is no longer used in commercially produced root beer since sassafras oil was banned for use in commercially mass-produced foods and drugs by the FDA in 1960 due to health concerns about the carcinogenicity of safrole, a major constituent of sassafras oil, in animal studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras

[HAB911]

23. Will definitely try this

This year I gave up trying to stop them from growing in my garden.

Like any invasive flora or fauna, the only way to eradicate is to designate it a food. Poof, problem solved!

[2naSalit]

33. +1

[OkSustainAg]

28. Chicory plots

My chicory comes back every year. Endive like greens very sustainable. You can let chia grow outside it grows alot larger than people would think.

[handmade34]

34. and the roots

of chicory make an excellent coffee like drink

[MissB]

36. Hairy bittercress is edible too

You can eat the leaves. Not bitter actually; it’s more peppery like an arugula.

It’s pretty invasive so if you have it might as well use it.