111 Milkweed Shoots, 37 Burdock Roots…

My secret Burdock patch at Peaceful Acres

Here are young tasty Milkweed stalks

SCORE again! Had not made it back to the Milkweed patch for a week or more and was craving the ‘green bean’ taste of young shoots. It’s important to catch nature’s wave for various wild offerings when they are in the peak of energy and not ‘after’ they peak. With all the rain and sunshine we’ve had I was afraid they would be too old to harvest.

Happily there were many shoots that were still tender enough to harvest for ‘beans’. Snagged 111 of them. Taking a break from garbling them (stripping off their leaves, chopping them into pieces, parboiling and freezing them for future use. The milky latex is now on my computer keyboard as I merely wiped my hands and didn’t use soap. Feels yucky…

Wild Grapes still on the vine

Above my Milkweed patch a new vine of Wild Grape was just beginning to strangle a Locust tree. I saved the day by snipping the vine and yanking hard to free the tree of it’s death grip. As a result I have a fine harvest of Spring Grape leaves to soak in brine for my Wild Greek Feast this Summer where I’ll feature dolmathes on the menu.

Also in the Milkweed patch among the Queen Anne’s Lace, Plantain, Catnip (tons of this), Wild Rose, Yarrow,

Yellow Dock and of course 100’s of growing Milkweed shoots was an amazing carpet of Wild Strawberry. I love the leaves for my herbal mouth rinse for gum health so I snipped a handful of these as well.

Chippy and Skipper helping out

And lastly I freed 37 Burdock roots from an endless supply of first year rosettes of Arctium lappa. These were located behind my mom’s house on a precarious spit of land above a sheer drop of 30 feet or so. No sweat for me but my collies decided to follow me into the wild. Skipper’s body is a barometer monitoring incoming storms and when one is on it’s way he shadows me more than usual. He’d climb on my lap if I’d let him. Made it a bit hard to jump on my shovel to free the Burdock roots with a furball leaning against my leg, shaking.

The storm kept at bay till I loaded up my truck with my treasures and then the rain came.

I LOVE foraging. Kinda like some women LOVE shopping.
Lugging my bags filled to overflowing with great ‘deals’ and lots of plans for new recipes dancing about in my head. I feel so blessed.

Now to sort, clean, process and store (if only I had a house full of little boys still at home to get them busy scrubbing roots!!) Lots to do!

Skipper impeding my work

Garbled and ready to cook