companions planting was never so easy
Foreign plants do quite well here, they appear here there and everywhere without you having to spread a single seed and they are very hardy. Any other gardener looks on these “weeds” with bored cynacism and reaches for the round-up.
Don’t judge them on those nasty rumours that Monsanto spins, they can be useful and some are edible too.
DANDELION
Native to Europe and Asia, can use to loosen overgrazed, compacted pastoral soils as well as in the humblke veggie patch.
Their long deep tap roots break up hard soil and bring nutrients up from deep down to benefit shallower rooted annuals without competing for surface nutrients. They also release ethylene gas which aids in fruit ripening, so a patch of dandelions around your late green tomatoes might be a good idea. Their bright yellow flowers attract beneficial insects such as bees to pollinate your garden.
Most intriguing of all is their power to combat fusarium wilt, a soil-borne fungal disease that effects tomatoes grown in the same soil year after year. This disease reduces health and yield of tomatoes, but dandelion roots produce an acid that starves the disease of iron.
We harvest the root, peel it and use it in stirfries for a potatoey/parsnipy substitute.
Used as a nutritious salad green, benefits of dandelion include:
SOW THISTLE
Sow thistle too is said to aid growth, but I’m slightly suss on this particular edible. There was a particularly old and serrated one in my garden bed which I brushed passed. Where it touched my skin I came up in what can only be described as a horribly itchy flea bite like rash. With a reaction that extreme I’m loathed to put it in my mouth, no matter how nutritious it is. Turns out I’m one of those unlucky people with an allergy to the old Sow!
So this a lesson to everyone before eating any new food whether it be a weed or just an exotic fruit, test a little bit first don’t go swallowing a whole green smoothie full of it! One day I will try cooking it then doing a patch test on my wrist first, but until then I think I will just stick to the nettles and dandelions until I’m REALLY HUNGRY!
NETTLES
Native to Europe and Northern Africa, be heartened that when you feel its sweet sting at your ankles and merrily hop in pain that it is an indicator that your soils is oh so fertile, pop a tomato next door for optimum results.
This was one of the Permaculture lessons that blew my mind, Peak Oil aside, could that horrible stinging nettle that I had long called weed be a friend?
Nettle in companion planting
Nettles are said to increase disease resistance and resilience to insect attacks. People even go so far to say it improves the flavour of its neighbours, increasing their production of aromatic oils. As a tomato companion they improve their keeping quality by slowing down the fermentation process and for eggplants they are the ladybird’s preferred breeding ground so bad news for the resident aphids. And remember why nettles make a good mulch?
I recommend you pick up a copy of Adam Grubb’s Weed Forager’s Handbook to learn more, it’s really fascinating.
Nettles as edible
Eat the tender young leaves dried, blended or cooked for these benefits:
So next time you feel tempted to pull that weed, maybe rethink the definition and pull the ornamental taking up valuable tomato space instead.
Nettles are a protected place for caterpillars to transform into beautiful butterflies.
Sometimes confused (by me at least 😉 ) with RED RIB DANDELION which is actually a chicory, but still a great addition to a salad!
Butterfly metamotphosis photos taken by my clever dad
13 Comments
I have always been so interested in edible weeds. I need to get a foraging handbook so I know exactly what is safe to eat. I used to be one of those people who didn’t like weeds like dandelions, but now I love them because of my bees! They flock to the weeds to gather pollen to bring back to the hive. I recently saw a blogger made dandelion jelly – I’d love to try that sometime!
Wow dandelion jelly sound great, it’s one thing to identify them but a whole nother level to make something so gourmet out of them!
I think dandelion jelly sounds awesome too. I’ve never heard of it. Of course, eating it in salads is pretty common, but other than dandelion wine, I’ve never seen other ways to consume it. You got a cool blog here. Your rooster is so cool!
Thanks Mr Brown Thumb! 😀 That rooster is our strange blind Isa Brown hen, all our chickens seem to have gender confusion, the bantam shrieks its lungs out first thing in the morning and the isa’s grow large combs and try and beat each other up. Entertaining for sure. 😉
Just learned something new from you… the Sow thistle… have it in my garden and shall try to take a nibble and see if it suits my tongue… need to find out more on the nettle thingy…
Thanks for your comment Lrong, I hope it agrees with you! 😀
hey dylan and jo. thanks for the plug of the book (which is as much Annie Raser-Rowland’s as mine!) beautiful website, beautiful photos. btw, it think some of the shots of dandelion are actually of red ribbed chicory. they look so similar in leaf shape that it’s sometimes sold as red ribbed dandelion, but i’ve never seen a red stem in true dandelion. I hadn’t heard of anyone with a sow thistle allergy before. There’s almost nothing I can find in the google or the scientific literature about Sonchus olereaceus allergies except mention as a minor hay fever contributor — so I suspect it must be very rare. sorry to hear you have it! the photo in the ehow.com link is not of Sonchus olereaceus, the one shown in your garden — it looks like another kind of Sonchus or close relative though. if you do find anything please let me know!
Hi Adam, thank you very much for you comment! I was so touched when I heard you shared our Pascoe Vale Permablitz post on the VEG facebook, is was so very lovely.
Do you think Sonchus asper could cause the reaction (also edible ?)? It was a big patch of sow thistle, quite old and raggedy in age and there were some prickly sows among the bunch. I’ve just been avoiding the whole damn family after such an uncomfortable introduction, but I will donate my skin to science this week and do some experiments! 😀 Personally I hope not be such a delicate flower that I am the only known case of Sonchus olereaceus allergy!
Hmmm…was told that the red ribbed dandelion was a more palatable kind of dandelion LIES!!! Haha that’s why you have a weed book and not me! Will have to swap the photos up. On the sunny side though will let the red ribbed chicory bloom, they are one of my favourite kind of veg flowers, second only to the carrot flower!
Thanks again!
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