Page 123 - The Lost Ways
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fact, when the blooms are tender, you can eat them just like you would corn on the cob,
or you can scrape the green buds off and use them in a casserole.
Once the pollen has ripened, collect the buds, and remove it all. Carefully sift through the
pollen to remove foreign materials, and add it to your baking or sprinkle it over any dish
for added nutrition.
Chickweed, Common
Annual herb; harvest all year
The easiest method of harvest is to pull up the whole plant and trim off the tender growth
with scissors. You can get down on all fours and trim it the same way if you plan on
harvesting the same plant later.
17
Chickweed grows abundantly all across the continent, so chances are that you’ll know
where several patches are growing at all times; there are no poisonous lookalikes, so
there is no reason not to harvest plenty. Look for it in disturbed earth—yards, vacant lots,
and road sides but also where water grows, like near creeks and dark, moist spots in the
woods.
17 Field chickweed - Miguel Vieira (CC BY 2.0)
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