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Everything is Food - Perennial Greens by Stephen Watts

Perennial Greens

Wild Garlic Allium Ursinum

Sorrel

This grows through all the woods in spring. Very easily identified by it’s garlic smell. Use the leaves, flowers and unripe seed heads in salads or as a garlic replacement. This is probably the most well used wild green and has endless medicinal properties. If you don’t have time to pick it every day then pick lots, wash and keep in fridge for extended use. This can be done with all leafy foods.

Dandelions Taraxacum officinale

I LOVE dandelions. They do my body no end of good. I pick the leaves mainly in spring since they are so abundant and so welcome after winter for spring cleaning. The early spring leaves are the ones to go for you if you’re not into bitterness. The leaves will wilt if you don’t eat them the day you pick them but soaking them in water has recovered them for me. I use them in salads all the time. I work on allotments and when I dig up a large dandelion root I save it. The Chinese often use it for cooking. I usually just peel it and eat it raw provided it’s not too bitter (some are Very bitter). I pick leaves in late summer for drying and using in winter. The roots are also easily dried and can be used for teas or soupy things.

[Traditionally, dandelion leaves were blanched to remove the bitterness - John]

Stinging Nettles,

Spring is again the best time for picking but also in autumn. As well as juicing (for which they are amazing- probably my favorite: you’ll know what I mean when you try it) I dry them for use in the winter. Just pick the heads – scissors are very useful but I rarely use gloves more out laziness and that I don’t mind the odd sting (it will build up on the skin after a while even if you don’t feel you’re getting stung).

I often pick just the very top and role it between thumb and finger and pop it straight under my teeth and chew to remove sting. I once showed this technique to a bunch of kids who, as I was picking, inquired into what I was doing. Some of them seemed a bit confused (Eating nettles?) but some seemed interested when I told then it was an excellent medicine. (The following day: “…so nettles are good for you?” I heard one shout as I cycled past…) This is one of the most used plants by herbalists……

Cleavers, Galium aparine

Also know as goose grass and the one which you stick to people’s clothes (it has tiny hooks). As with nettles I tried it cooked first but then got into green juices for the feeling they give me. I juice it and eat it raw, but keep to the young softer growth for eating purposes. It may take a while to get used to the texture….

Plantain, Plantago

This grows in grassy banks, gardens and edges of woods. I eat the young leaves in salads in small amounts. The older leaves are tougher but can still be used as medicine. I pick this to dry and use in winter.

Ground Elder, Aegopodium podagraria

It was brought over to this country by the Romans as a vegetable plant and it has become “native/wild”. I gave some to my dad and he said “why don’t people eat this?” If only I knew the answer…. It is a super tasty food, superb in salads. It grows on woodland edges and especially around allotment sites. Do not mistake this with Dog’s Mercury – not one you want to eat.

Chickweed, Stellaria media

I harvest lots of this while weeding on the allotment and rarely have more than I can use – I juice excess amounts. This is to my tastes divine but to others like grass. I will happily eat it on its own but add it to salads for others to eat. You can find it in woods, grassy banks and fields etc In the Olden Days bags of chickweed were passed around the markets in town. As with all greens gathered in public places make sure you wash them properly.

Free food and wild foods are self-sufficiency topics covered in our book, Low Cost Living.

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Sorrel, Rumex spp..

This grows in grass lands, fields, parks etc. It has a lemony tang taste. A fun addition to salads.

Cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris

Use in the way you use parsley, though it has a different flavour altogether. It looks similar to sweet cicely and grows in similar conditions. Make sure you identify these two properly since there are two poisonous ones in the same family – hemlock and fools parsley.

Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata

This tastes unsurprisingly like garlic and mustard combined. I’ve found it growing in the botanical gardens. It also is found in woods and by roadsides and hedges and gardens.

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