My Yard Is A Salad

This Spring, my mom and I attended a Wildflower Symposium at Bear Creek Lake State Park. We got to go on a rainy wildflower walk, learn about various edible wildflowers in our area, and hear some great speakers talk about how we can use plants growing around us. We also got some great book and app recommendations, and soon after I downloaded PictureId and went to snapping pics of my yard. 

This post is going to include some helpful wildflower info, so read on!

The first pic I have here is the yard plantain. There are a couple of different species around here- blackseed and broadleaf are two. Some folks use the broadleaf in a salad, when its young, and the leaves are small and tender. Mostly it's been used as an antihistamine. Crush some up (chew it, grind it between your fingers) and put it on bug bites and bee stings. 

Here's my own little testimonial: Karl Wayne got stung by a bee over his eye, a few months ago. Some chewed-up yard plantain took the swelling down within the hour. I'll break up a leaf and rub it on mosquito bites. The itch goes away within seconds. True story. Try it. 

If you've read Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, you may remember her calling the yard plantain, White Man's Footprint. Indigenous people gave it this name, as seemed to spread from the soles of the settlers feet onto the ecosystems around it, and it thrived in the damaged ecosystems around the settlements. A landscaper would call this plant a weed. Wouldn't it be easy to draw a parallel between the weed and the settlers? 

But, that's not where I'm going with this. Yard plantain has more uses that turf grass. It's better for the soil and it's easier to maintain. Why is it considered the weed? Kimmerer, in Braiding Sweetgrass, says that White Man's Footprint integrated with its landscape. It made itself useful and didn't take too much. Why is it the weed?

Carolina geranium is another "weed" growing in my yard. My photos are all pics of my own yard, and this little cransebill wasn't in full bloom when I snapped this picture, so google photos of this plant when its in full maturity. They have cute little blooms that will turn red when they fruit. Some of the leaves will also don the red and the whole plant is this beautiful compliment of red in your green yard of weeds 😁

Carolina cranesbill (another name for this awesome little winter annual) flourishes in sandy, rocky soil, and partial shade, so I have a ton growing out by the driveway. This geranium is a natural astringent and has anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. I put dried leaves in a mixture of vinegar and lime juice to make a light cleaner for my counters. 

Virginia pepperweed, or Poor Man's pepper, is yet another weed I have growing in my yard, as well as mock strawberries, violets, daffodils, and wood sorrel. These are all edible. I also have ground ivy, mugwort, and Indian tobacco in my yard (these shouldn't be eaten). 

The Virginia pepperweed tastes like horseradish. The mock strawberries taste like nothing--a brief crisp bite of slightly moist nothing. The wood sorrel tastes like lemons. These and the pepperweed are a great addition to any salad. I've also used them in summer rolls. I recommend the violets too. Wild violets are mild in flavor, so they won't overpower a salad. 

There are so many different wildflowers growing in my yard, and I'm only just beginning to discover how useful and tasty these little "weeds" can be. If you have an issue with "weeds" in your turf grass, I highly recommend a change in perspective. Maybe, reconsider what you want growing on your little slice of earth. 

Something else I really love about my yard covered in little edible flowers--I don't have to water it and I cut it less often. And now that I'm able to recognize each little plant for the beautiful little unique organism it is, I see life in my yard. I can distinguish the little blooms on the Carolina geranium, and I recognize when it's at maturity by it's blushing, it's turning red. 

I was reading something a while back about the emergence of "the yard," or the yard as we know it--wide swaths of turf grass with highlights of color in flower beds or with flowering trees, not fruiting trees, in most cases. *Sidenote- there's a reason cities plant male trees instead of the fruiting female trees. Weirdly enough, local governments have taken issue with people picking the fruit off public trees, as if Mother Earth wants to withhold her gifts. 

Anyway, back to the emergence of "the yard," which, not coincidentally is very much connected to why local governments have taken issue with fruit picking, or publicly owned plants that provide food. Yards emerged when there were servants to tend them, around the time of the enclosure of the commons in England. I won't get too heavy into the politic here, but once upon a time, we peasants (that's right, just like now, you wouldn't have been invited to the balls...just like me:) ) once lived on common land. We didn't have to pay taxes on it. We grew fruit trees on it and all got to pick the fruit. We shared. 

Truth be told, I'm not well versed in English history, so I can't really tell you what life was like on the commons. But mull this over. Peasants then worked an average of 150 days out of the year. We work 260. Our big flex on peasant life is that we live longer and have iPhones nowadays. Welp, crazy enough, we have the tech currently to work about as much as a medieval peasant, aaaaaannd produce enough food, shelter, tech for everyone to thrive. Begs the question, why can't we "un-enclose the commons (integrate a system that accomplishes these goals)?"