Cooperative Living June 2020 - 31

From Backyard to Dinner Plate
MeadowAdventure | by Sari Carp, Contributing Writer
At left, a nasturtium salad
almost too pretty to eat.
Y
ou've been stuck at home for months, and you're about
ready to start chewing the furniture. Might we suggest
you chew your yard instead? Not all of it, mind you,
but your garden is full of unexpected edibles.
Most of those weeds you yank out by the handful are richer
in nutrients than any cultivated greens, while more flowers
than you'd think make tasty, decorative additions to salads.
Violets, nasturtiums, calendula and lavender all fetch top
dollar from high-end city chefs, but are available to rural
residents for the price of a seed packet (or free, if you don't
mow down those violets in the lawn).
You also don't need to buy aromatic calming teas from
the supermarket; just step outside and harvest them fresh.
Do your research before munching and exercise common
sense. Don't chow down if you're not positive what a plant
is, and never consume plants from an area recently sprayed
with pesticide, herbicide or fertilizer.
Plant ID apps and online research are your friends. For
identification, Virginia conservation nonprofit Sustainability
Matters hosts a series on Facebook (#BackyardEdibles) and
Instagram (@sustainabilitymattersVA), highlighting one
seasonable edible per post.
To get you started, here are some treats for an early summer harvest:
Common orange daylilies
(Hemerocallis fulva)
Redbud
(Cercis canadensis)
Yup, those " ditch lilies " are almost entirely edible. The leaves
are too tough already by this time of year, but the flower buds are
a prized delicacy. Pick before they open and steam, stir-fry or fry
in batter, tempura-style. Open flowers can be stuffed like squash
blossoms or used to thicken soup.
New white tubers (roots) taste potato-like and yummy, though
are best harvested in late fall or winter. Don't bother with mature
brown tubers unless you're really hungry. And definitely don't go
eating the fancier daylilies; stick to common orange ones. Other
members of the lily family are rarely edible and some (Easter lilies,
for example) are downright toxic.
After redbud is done blooming, most people forget about the
spring stunner. The flowers are the most well-known edible part -
they're a sweet spot in salads, baked goods and jellies - but the pods
are even more flavorful and nutritious. When they appear in summer,
they're green like the leaves, going unnoticed until fall, when they're
large and brown. That's too late to eat them, though. Harvest when
they're young and tender, and eat them like snow peas.
Bee balm
(Monarda spp.)
Wood sorrel
(Oxalis spp.)
This is one of those weeds you're always pulling. It's often
confused with clover, as it shares shamrock-shaped leaves, but
wood sorrel's leaves are paler green and its flowers are yellow and
petaled, rather than spherical like clover's.
In this case, don't panic if you haven't learned to tell the
difference yet, as clover is edible too. Wood sorrel offers much
more for your taste buds, though. Use its lemony, complex leaves
in everything from salads to soups (look for recipes for Eastern
European sorrel soup, or " schav " ) to egg dishes. It almost makes
weeding a pleasure.
co-opliving.com
The original " patriotic tea " of the American Revolution, perfect
for today's " victory garden " mindset. After the revolutionaries threw
the British tea into Boston Harbor, they made their own from bee
balm instead. It's not caffeinated, of course, but it does have a
fragrant, smoky flavor reminiscent of Lapsang Souchang tea or Earl
Grey. In fact, its alternative name of " wild bergamot " references
the bergamot flowers used in Earl Grey tea.
Many different kinds of bee balm are native to Virginia, but
the most flavorful tea comes from bright magenta Monarda didyma,
the kind most commonly cultivated in home gardens. For a pop
of color, just steep the leaves and flowers in hot water. It's great
iced, too.
Sari Carp is executive director of Sustainability Matters in Virginia,
a nonprofit focused on conservation education and community building.
June 2020 | Cooperative Living | 29
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Cooperative Living June 2020

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