Eat Your Weeds! Forage Your Own Purslane.

Hah! There is something I've never done before. Before I started mowing my yard today, I did something different with the weeds--as in the typical classification of an unwanted plant. I didn't pull the weeds up, but heck that would be different. I usually just mow right over them. I don't have a prize lawn. I don't have sprinkler system. I have Bahia. The good part about Bahia is that it will grow anywhere in my yard. Sun, shade, water, no water, whatever. The bad is it grows very sparsely, you can see each blade growing individually from the sand. I can see all the sand everywhere in my yard. I think a yard typically has dirt, but my yard is sand. If you dig down about 5 foot, you can find what appears to be dirt. To me that's not a lawn. A lawn is a solid plush covering of green that the dirt does not show through. I don't have that. So, mowing my "lawn" gives me very dirty (somehow even my sand produces black dust) feet, because I live in Florida so a lot of us mow our yards in our flip-flops. Thongs if you're fancy. The point is, if I pull the weeds, it looks even more bare, so I just mow over the weeds. Today I decided to taste them.

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 Now of course everyone knows that many plants are edible, we call them fruits and vegetables. I have a difficult time getting my children eat one of those. Can you guess which? You should also realize that many things animals eat can be eaten by people too. We humans are so often in a rut of doing what we are used to and forgetting all about trying new things. In other cultures it is acceptable to eat many things we turn our noses up to here in America. I have only recently started to learn about all the things you can eat that may be growing right around you. Most people are aware of finding a wild bush with edible berries--I found one on a relative's property in the mountains. I had no idea however that you could take a walk in the woods, or even your own property, find a plant and eat it. This just blew me away. I looked through edible plant guides and discovered one of them is growing in my yard in masses! Purslane. So, I picked one, washed it, and tasted it. I just ate it raw, as I wanted to know if I liked it, but there are quite a few recipes out there. People put them in salads, omelets, or cook them up as a side.

 How did it taste? Well at first I though it didn't taste like anything, but after chewing more it reminded me somewhat of cucumber. So-so. It would take a lot to fill me up, the leaves are small. It seems my best use would be to add it to other dishes for flavor and nutrition. It's high in Omega-3 fatty acids and other great things. I ate the flowers too. I've now discovered I really like to eat flowers. They were soft and sweet. These things are growing all over and I don't want to mow them, so I'm thinking I need to transfer them somewhere else. I've always liked these plants and admired their coloful flowers. Now I have another reason to keep them. I'd like to try some more things growing "out there" but need to do some more reasearch. There's another thing growing here that looks like chickweed, but not sure yet. I'm new to this but there is quite a following of food foraging, I just never knew it existed. Well, my purslane snack is wearing off, time for a real lunch!