Dandelions,
lamb's-quarter, and chicory were used for fresh salads and potherbs, and the roots of groundnuts and Jerusalem artichokes made a tasty potato substitute.
Lamb's-quarter is a common nuisance plant (to farmers, anyway) that is similar to spinach.
This is
lamb's-quarter, a spinach relative found worldwide in the wild.
Find it: A prolific weed,
lamb's-quarters grows just about everywhere, including in sidewalk cracks and even factory yards.
By midsummer, my favorite weeds of all would emerge from plowed fields: a high-rising, spinach-related green called
lamb's-quarters, and a low-slung, creeping plant called purslane, with its succulent, lemony leaves.
Some of the plants to stay away from include bracken fern, dock, hemlock, locoweed, milkweed, mountain laurel, oak leaf, rhubarb, sorrel, wilted wild cherry, and under certain conditions (decreased light, fast growth after drought, heavy fertilizers) johnsongrass, pigweed,
lamb's-quarters, and alfalfa can accumulate toxic amounts of nitrates.
The seeds are actually the fruits of a leafy green plant in the Chenopodium family, closely related to wild greens such as
lamb's-quarters and pigweed, and in the same family as beets, chard and spinach.
Fertile soil: Pigweed,
lamb's-quarters, foxtails, common chickweed
ARS researchers Jay Radhakrishnan, John Teasdale and Ben Coffman in Beltsville, Md., tested vinegar on major weeds -- common
lamb's-quarters, giant foxtail, velvetleaf, smooth pigweed and Canada thistle -- in greenhouse and field studies.
I picked
lamb's-quarters and she ignored it," Duchon recalls.
Additionally, many "weeds," such as chickweed and
lamb's-quarters, are highly nutritious and good candidates for pesto.
Wild plants such as dandelion greens,
lamb's-quarters, and others are more nutritious than the lettuce sold in the supermarkets.