Wild Weed Wisdom

Nurture Your 'Inner Wild' with Foraged Edible and Medicinal Plants

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Burdock Root

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Burdock Root

Digging up wild roots in many parts of Great Britain, Europe, and North America is against the law. One must get special permission from park authorities or the land-owner, unless you are digging on your own property. This is an ethical question I sometimes struggle with: in the case when a plant is considered a nuisance, a common weed, wouldn’t it be better for a forager like myself to remove this plant and make good use of it? As opposed to prevelant ‘weed management’, where the plant is removed anyway, and often with harmful pesticides? I know of numerous instances where I respected the law, only to see that the roots I’d have loved to harvest had been dug up en masse by park authorities…

I do understand that we also can’t have everyone digging up as many roots as they like!

Pretty tricky.

Anyway, the delicious burdock roots shown in this photo came from just down the street, from the Korean “Toko” shop; where gobo (its Asian name) is sold for use in traditional Korean and Japanese dishes. If you’ve eaten vegetarian maki, you’ve probably eaten gobo (牛蒡 or ごぼう). Korean use the term “u-eong” (우엉) or “tong u-eong” (통우엉), meaning, “whole burdock”. If you have never tried this before, head over to your local shop and pick some up.

The cultivated roots of burdock can grow about one metre long and two centimetres across, though I believe the wild, first-year burdock would have more medicinal properties than a cultivated one. Burdock root is crisp with a sweet, mild, and pungent flavour and earthy smell.  Its helpful to soak it, julienned or shredded, in water for five to ten minutes to keep it from turning grayish-brown once the outer layer has been removed (remove it as one would peel a carrot).

In macrobiotic cooking, burdock root is considered  healing, warming, and calming. It helps one think more clearly and stay even-tempered. It is an excellent jet-lag remedy.

Burdock Root (Articum lappa) is great added to soups, stews, and stir-fries. I add it to my ‘almost-famous’ Boston Baked Beans dish. I will post this recipe at a later date and link it to this page. I’ll also continue to add photos of burdock in various stages of growth to help you locate your own; as well as describe all the other amazing things burdock has to offer.

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Last week to catch the Dog-Violet

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Last week to catch the Dog-Violet

This is probably the last week or two to spy the shy, but fairly common, Dog Violet, viola riviniana. This pretty little flower with the inspiring aroma and gentle, loving energy is full of vitamins – a welcome treat in the old days for families emerging from a winter living off dried and preserved foods.
You may have seen sugared violets gracing fancy cakes and pastries – a few flower-heads in a dried tea mix, or atop a fresh, foraged salad, look simply beautiful. The leaves are also edible.
I suggest, if you see this darling, to just have a nibble of a leaf, followed by the taste of one flower, allowing the scent and flavour to linger on your tongue… unless, of course, you’ve found a forest-edge or shady glen full of them, where if you pick just a few more it should be okay. Maybe a prayer or song for the Dog-Violet faery is in order in that case… 🙂

Herbal Sleep & Dream Pillows for Wild Weed Kids

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Dream and Sleep Pillows usually give off a wonderful aroma of sweet and pungent herbs, such as lavender, cedar, chamomile, rose, and anise. Some of the other herbs are not quite so aromatic, but still offer benefits to sleep and dreaming – motherwort and hops. Max (aged 6) is getting a good dose of some Rosemary from her basket! To learn about how to make your own Sleep or Dream Pillow, click here.

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We all put special notes, words and/or drawings into our pillows to personalize them and fill them with intent. The children LOVED this concept, and dove into the task of carefully customizing their pillow. Here is 5-year-old Anika with her drawing.

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In the bottle you can see dried hops (sleep enhancer), in the background is a bottle of Calendula (gentle, loving dreams) and the loose, dried herb is mugwort (enhanced dreams). Children don’t really need this herb to enhance dreams, but I found such a nice patch, that had been out all winter, and was therefore less potent, I thought it would be nice to introduce it. Plus, it is great for kids to see the herb on the stalk, and pull the dried leaves of themselves.

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There was some Motherwort (Cardiaca leonorus) growing on-site, and I also had some dried with me… I explained to the children how, aside from the traditional use as a heart-remedy, Motherwort also bathed you in “Mother’s Love” when you felt lonely, angry, jealous, or just plain sad. Or just when you wanted a hug, and your Mommy couldn’t be there. All the kids said they’d like this, especially because they wished they could snuggle with their Mom’s all night long. Marou’s pillow was made with great care, full of all the loving herbs – Motherwort, Rose, Chamomile and Calendula, especially.

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Filling the pillow with loving thoughts…

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We first had a tour of some of the living herbs growing at the VU Hortus – Rosemary, Sage, Motherwort, Cedar, Birch… and then added some extra I provided.

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This bag of Rosebuds made each child sigh with happiness, and close their eyes with joy. Can you imagine how they may help with happy, loving dreams? (They also taste divine when added to a pot of black tea)

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Another good look at the bags (bath-linen mittens) we used. Easy to make yourself as well, with old cloth hankys, for example.

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Amelie did a great job stripping the dried leaves off of the Mugwort stalk.

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… and again, this time it’s Mateo.

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We also added Mullein, to help keep nightmares at bay and have nice dreams. The kids loved the idea of herbs to help with that. Here, I am holding some dried flower-head; there was also some fresh Mullein growing on-site that we discovered and talked about.

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The children helped harvest Rosemary leaves and we put them in the pillow – also to ward off bad dreams – and of course, we all ate some!

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Here’s a nice, fat, young, Motherwort leaf! Perfect for feeling loved and protected.

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A wonderful day.

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Embrace Your Weeds! (Helpful Weeds in the Garden Workshop)

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Embrace Your Weeds!

Our upcoming workshop, in conjunction with CityPlot,  is, “Embrace Your Weeds!”

We’ll be looking at some typical weeds found in backyards across most of urban Europe – I’ll introduce some edible ones, such as chickweed, wild mustard, and shaggy soldier, as well as medicinal weeds such as ground ivy and cleavers… and some that are both edible and medicinal, like the gorgeous burdock, shown above. In fact, when you realize that are so many great weeds growing, you might find you see your garden in a totally different light!

Suzanne will talk about which weeds can repel unwanted pests; and which support beneficial insects; weeds that nourish the soil, or can be made into a natural insect-repellant. It’s going to be a fascinating afternoon of exploring, tasting and talking about our wonderful weeds.

You can sign up through CityPlot – just scroll through their awesome website for a myriad of workshops that will leave you drooling; payment details are toward the bottom of their homepage; or you can simply contact me. Details below:

Embrace Your Weeds

Many of those “weeds” that spring up in your garden may have unique culinary and medicinal properties, and may play other useful roles in your specific ecosystem. We will visit Amsterdam gardens and get to know some of the most common and lovable weeds in person! Together with Ann and Suzanne from CityPlot, Jennie from Wild Weed Wisdom, and Lynn from Urban Herbology we will visit Amsterdam gardens and get to know some of the most common and lovable weeds in person!
Sunday 21 April, 14:00-16:00: Location: Cathy’s home; close to Vondelpark, by the Overtoom.
Sunday 2 June, 15:00-17:00: See CityPlot or Urban Herbology for location details.

Fee: 25 euros

Photo Credit: Mari Gordon


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Vu Hortus: Our New Home for School Excursions and Special Events!

The generous folks at the Vu Hortus who already host my Wild Weed Kids program have kindly offered their location for all my school-related children’s excursions and field-trips. I can’t tell you what an honour this is for me!

I’ll also make the VU Hortus my preferred location for special events for children – for example – birthday parties with a nature theme. And we’ll meet here as well for the upcoming Cookin’ Wild (more on this when I get a chance – this one is full, but we can plan another for end of summer).

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I love the Vu Hortus Botanicus – not only is it relaxed and unpretentious, but it is run almost entirely by volunteers. Please visit their website for more information on what they offer and to sign the petition to keep them open to the public (admission is always free!!) for as long as possible.

By the way, you can also buy all kinds of indoor and outdoor plants here, heirloom veggies and seed, and much more. Come by, take a look, buy a coffee, sign the guestbook…