Do you eat weeds? This sounds like a pretty crazy question doesn’t it? I’m here to tell you that weeds are not just for the grazing animals! There are so many wild edible plants out there that most people commonly think of as weeds. If you’ve been following our blog for a little while, you’ll already know that we love to forage and wild harvest plants, herbs, berries and meat from the land around us. I’m going to share with you today an amazing book I’ve been reading the last few months about foraging for edible plants that grow all around us.
A few months ago I started reading the book “The Wild Wisdom of Weeds” by Katrina Blair. The front cover of the book says “A forager’s guide to ultimate food security, including 100 nutrient-dense recipes for food, medicine and self-care.” When I read that, I knew I had to read this book!
When I first got the book, I was expecting it to be like most of my other wild edibles books that have over a hundred plants listed with only a page dedicated to each plant. Instead this book provides a more in-depth look at 13 edible plants that are commonly referred to as weeds. The most amazing part about these 13 plants? They grow in almost every part of the world! So unlike my favorite wild edibles books that are region specific, this one can be helpful to people all over the world. The 13 plants are:
- Dandelion
- Mallow
- Purlsane
- Plantain
- Thistle
- Amaranth
- Dock
- Mustard
- Grass
- Chickweed
- Clover
- Lambsquarter
- Knotweed
The book shares an interesting story about how the author, Katrina Blair, became knowledgeable of edible plants. I was amazed to read how she lived out in the woods, surviving on what she could forage, at such a young age. She also writes about her philosophy on the creation of life and starting the Turtle Lake Refuge.
What I loved about this book is that instead of just having one or two pages dedicated to each plant like most wild edibles books, Blair dedicates a chapter to each plant. She describes the plant and also explains the history of the plant. There are edible and medicinal uses explained for each plant.
Each chapter also includes multiple recipes for using the specific plant featured in that chapter. There are recipes like Dandelion Pesto, Knotweed Coconut Curry Soup, Lambsquarter Green Quiche, and Wild Mint Magic Treats. The recipes aren’t like the down home country farm recipes I grew up eating that are loaded down with butter and sugar. These recipes contain simple, often raw food, ingredients. I don’t know if my family would be too excited about eating all of the recipes, but there are definitely quite a few that I would like to try. Since we can find most of these plants on our homestead, I can’t wait to go foraging around our property next summer to harvest plants and create some of these recipes.
The highlight of what I learned from this book is about the mallow plant. In our 7,000 square foot garden, there was a “weed” that was quite invasive this summer and had a deep root system that was hard to pull out. I started hating this “weed” over the summer because it was taking over our bean patch, the strawberries and in the rows between all the garden beds. I tried to identify it with some plant books but to no avail. THEN I started reading this book. I was so excited when I saw this “weed” in our garden on the bottom front cover of the book. You can guess what chapter I read first: the one on mallow! While I hope the mallow plant does not take over our garden like it did last year, I am looking forward to actually harvesting and eating some of this “weed” that is growing so abundantly in our garden!
Chelsea Green Publishing provided me a copy of “The Wild Wisdom of Weeds” to review and share with you all and also generously provided an extra copy for a giveaway!
This giveaway is for one copy of the book and is open to residents of the United States. The giveaway will end at the end of the day on January 9, 2014. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment below telling us why you want to win the book. Good luck!
The giveaway is now closed. We used Random.org to select a winner, congrats to Jennifer G!
As Hebrews, we honor the Sabbatical laws by allowing our land to rest during the set-apart 7th year. Being able to (safely) forage for native wild-grown plants will provide many nourishing meals for myself and kahal as we keep this commandment in 2016. Katrina’s book would be an invaluable resource!
My grandmother was a great forager. As a child, I helped her pick strawberries to cranberries , cress, asparagus, mushrooms of all kinds, many other things. A few things I remember, but am confused and not confident on identification of most things. This book would be a great help.
I firmly believe that we are quickly headed for a time when we will need to be as independant as possible. The new health laws have made it almost impossible to see a Dr. For many people. That along with an over usage of antibiotics etc. Makes us east targets for many illnesses and viruses. I have always believed God gave us all we need in nature and we just need to understand how to properly use it. Information is power. Looks as if this book can hold a lot of power.
I have seen those books that have one age per plant and would love to have this book with the more detailed info on identification. And having some recipes to use would be fantastic. All I know to do is throw the leaves in a salad.
I have been a herbie for about 10 years, buying or growing what I use. The books that you buy usually are just not that descriptive on the plants in the wild, which makes me very nervous!!! I would love to have this book to help me better learn and know the wild weeds, so that not only my family but my community will be healthier and more prepared in the future. Thank you for your consideration!
I would love to learn to use the wild plants growing around our land to help supplement our food supply. Especially with the rising cost of food. This would be a great resource to make that happen and to be successful at it. Thanks for the opportunity!
This is a book right up my alley as I have been learning more about herbs and weeds that grow locally and have used plantain, comfrey and dandelion in various recipes, but I would be interested in learning far more about them and other weeds/herbs!
As a couple just starting to get into homesteading this sounds like an excellent resource!
I live in Northern British Columbia and forage off the land (sometime more than i forage in the grocery store). This book would be a staple in my pantry as i would be able to compliment what i already do. We are retiring further north this year and will be 2-3 hours from major shopping. We will be living completely off grid when we make our move this summer. Thank you for all of your insightful tips, they will be most helpful to us.
In the early 50’s, mothers in many neighborhoods gathered together for “coffee”. It was a time for sharing, stories, bonding, solving problems and passing on family (folk) medicine recipes and food sources.
Each time I learned the moms were going to be at our house, I magically got “sick’ so I could stay home and listen. I learned about uses for the oil expressed from a Lon peel. I learned how to gather dandelion for food and wine. I learned about elderberry asedicine and how every home had some version of a medicinal herb garden. Ours had camomile, garlic, lavender, oregano, thyme and more. Each had multiple uses.
Then the world changed and women left their home, their role as healer, teacher and found their place on the work world.
We lost something of so much importance…. And the generations following were not taught these important life lessons.
There is a resurgence of understanding the real value of these things we lost. Web pages are replacing the things we learned at our others knee. At 65 I decided to help bring some of this back. In March and for 6 month I will be tricking around with a young teacher I admine. We will travel the urban and not so urban areas in search of wild growing plants and weeks used for food and medicine.
Keep writing Mountain Homesteader, This Is The New Coffee Clatch of Old. Bravo!
I would life to win this book and for my part, will teach everything I learn too. Jana
I love learning about wild plants and if I can eat them, too, that would be great. I have been bringing in native plants into my yard and would love to add more plants for foraging.
This has been something I have been wanting to learn about as we have a lot of these weeds. I like that there is a chapter on each.
I too would love to have this book! Enjoyed reading the comments by others and wish all of you lived near to me here in eastern Pennsylvania so we could meet and gather and learn from one another. Would love to hear more from Jana and what she learned from her mother and neighbors.
Hi Susan that would be wonderful to live near like minded people, I have felt so alone in my foraging endeavors for so many years, till the internet came along, but of course it’s not the same as being together. I have been to Pennsylvania once and I fell in love with the architecture of the homes, much like our gingerbread houses here in Texas. However y’all’s weather, …brrr!! I also hear that the name “Zook” is very prevalent up there in the Amish community. So for all the reasons is why I replied to you. Stay warm, and health and happiness to you and yours.
Terressa
This would be a great book to have on hand as we are looking for our house, and it looks so interesting to read.thank you.
The powers that be gave us a world filled with everything we need for survival, and that is so fascinating, and wonderous to me. The more I learn, the more I realize I need to learn more. This book would be invaluable to me to not only learn recipes, but to satiate my desire for ethnobiological knowledge. Thank you so much for the opportunity to win an actual book to have and to hold. My 2 favorite things in the world are books, and ethnobiology, so this book will be a lifelong treasure to me.
Sincerely, Terressa
With economics the way they are, we may need this sooner than we think … I would love to learn more about foraging … it’s a lost art..
I think learning about these wonderful weeds will benefit my family a great deal . our health is rapidly declining ( severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivity ), along with our finances.
Thank You!
What a wonderful giveaway! Back in Wisconsin I began foraging and loved it; now I’m living in Arizona and everything I so much as look at is lethal- from cute bugs to fuzzy flowers! So I’ve been reluctant to attempt foraging here! This book sounds like it’s what I need to get out there once again!
Always good to get new knowledge or further you current knowledge….looing forward to adding this to my library!
I love to learn. Also I would love to learn what can be eaten that others try to kill. Thank you!
I have several books but none as in depth as this one sounds! Would love to dive in more!
Having a guide like this would help me be more confident in my foraging.
I am a total newbie and this would be a great resource to have with me so i can start with confidence, and not having to doubt myself and leave edible things in the ground every single time
I have been looking into eating off the land and this book would be really helpful. I would like to eat more natural and less preservatives.
What a great giveaway!
This is a terrific book!!
I am currently reading it and I am so impressed with the knowledge that Katrina has of these incredible plants and how she conveys their importance and our benefit of them.
We are now going to be including these “weeds”, on purpose, into our integrated forest garden (backyard).. the recipes for both eating and medicinal are simple, that even for a beginner like myself, will have the confidence to try!
I believe that every person should have this book, no kidding….That is why I would love to win this.
I would be giving it to my brother, who has always had a love of the outdoors, natural medicine and a curiosity for everything edible!
Thank you for this awesome opportunity! Sincerely-Danielle
Living an unprocessed life. Need to learn all I can about foraging.
I love learning about the wild plants! In October of this year. I moved from southern Arizona to an old farmhouse in Idaho. WOW there were so many green weeds! Now it’s winter with snow covered ground but I’m looking so forward to spring and learning what all the green weeds are. It sounds like “The Wild Wisdom of Weeds” would truly be perfect for me. I’d love the opportunity to win this book. Thank you!
This book would be a wonderful addition to anyone’s library! With money very tight d/t ‘forced retirement’, I decided this year to focus on skills to help improve and protect my family’s health. Herbals, foraging, alternative practices are my primary focus. And I know the bulk of those ‘weeds’ grow locally, and I’m anxious to learn how to incorporate them into our diet as well as their medicinal uses. Thanks for this chance!
This would be a perfect gift for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. I would enjoy surprising them with a gift for no reason!
I homeschool and my daughters & I always thought it would be great to learn about helpful/edible “weeds”. This would be a great resource to help us learn!
I would love to win this book because I have a lot of health issues and am trying to eat from nature and as healthy as I can. I would like to no what I can and can’t eat from the outside. Food that is fresh and nothing added to it. To know the one’s that are good for medical would be great to no. It would help me and my family so much.
The plants and wildlife near my home are my only true friends. I would love a copy of this book. Thank you.
This sounds like a great book!! I’m getting pretty good at identifying wild edibles, but what to do with them next is why this book would be great! Thank you!
Good knowledge to have. Any skills we can learn, that will help our grocery budget is great. Thanks for sharing this.
I’d like to win this book. It’s good to know you can “live off the land” if you have to. Lots of good info here!
I would love to win this book for all the valuable information it contains. I am learning about homesteading, gardening, vermi-composting, ducks, chickens, beekeeping and anything else sustainable, green and organic. For the benefit of my family and the earth. Thank you in advance for the opportunity to win such a great prize.
Would love to have this book to help identify all the wonderful plants that can help feed the family. We enjoy eating from our garden and adding from the wild is all the better.
I’d love to win as this is something I’ve always been interested in learning about! Thank you! 🙂
I absolutely adore herbs and we have an abundance of weeds and foraging capabilities in our area, I would love this book to help guide me so I can make the best of it! Thank you for this giveaway opportunity!
This sounds like a wonderful resource for achieving more self sufficiency. I find the whole area of wildcrafting/ foraging fascinating!
I have a couple of wild edibles books, but they have not given me the confidence to really seek out and use “weeds” that grow in my yard and surroundings. I fully believe these original plants are much more beneficial than our cultivated varieties. As I expand my garden, I would love to deliberately let some of these plants have a home in my yard. I love that this book has whole sections devoted to each plant, so I can do more than timidly taste them. Thank you for this chance for one of us to win.
I’ve been trying to transition my family into a more natural lifestyle, and a huge part of that is natural remedies, foraging, and growing our own food…this book sounds like it would be a great help in my acquisition of knowledge during this transition!
I have so many weeds that try to take over my garden, I would love to find a way to make them more useful than burning or the compost heap.
I just started last year about growing/finding food and have really enjoyed it. This book would help further my knowledge. thanx for the chance to win
I am learning. Learning to grow and eat organically. Logically, the next step is to learn how to take advantage of nature’s bounty, that surrounds me.
I love gardening and learning about plants and their uses. These wonderful plants called “weeds” are very interesting to learn about in ways I had no idea. It would be great to learn more.
I just started foraging last year and was amazed what edibles and medicinals grew in my small back yard. I would love to go into the surrounding areas and find what is there. Would love to have the book to help me identify and use them.
I am new a learning to be self-sufficient. I would really like to learn different edibles in the woods and be able to know what to do with them. Thank you for the opportunity to enter this contest!
I have been interested in weeds and how to use them for awhile now. This book would be very helpful in learning their uses.
Stroked out hubs and I live on my wonderful daughter’s almost 2 acres w/o our own income. I garden to provide as much produce as I can, and would LOVE to learn about foraging with RECIPES!
My mom raised us eating dandelions, milkweed, and mustard greens. My kids now think I’m crazy! I want them to understand and appreciate the bounty available to them.
wanting to learn more about different herbs and plants that are edible and readily available.
I’d love to win this book. It sounds wonderful. Every summer when our granddaughter visits I attempt to teach her about the edible plants that surround us, but I’m learning right along with her and this would be a great resource.
My grandparents used to forage but don’t remember much about it. I would love to learn and keep that tradition in the family!
Would love to add this to my homesteader library I don’t have any books on foraging and this would make a great addition. There’s quite a few weeds here I’d like to add to my food supply, I recognize a few I have here . Be a good book to have on hand if something ever happened to the food supply.
Who WOULDN’T want this book?? There may come a day that none of us have food security and knowing how to meet that basic survival need for ourselves is going to be vitally important. The more I read, the more I know……and this is one area I need to learn more
I had thyroid cancer last year and I have been teaching myself everything I can about all the wild food growing everywhere, how to cultivate and use it for nutrition and medicine. This book would be a great addition to my small but growing library.
I have been looking for just such a resource to learn more about foraging.
spending as much time as possible in the wild, the Rocky Mtns, it’s always good to know the wild edibles. thx!!!
I want to learn which plants growing around our property are edible. We moved to Montana two years ago and a lot of the weeds here are different than where I grew up.
I would love to win this book! I believe it would help me and my family to be more familiar with the plants around us and what we can do with them. Thanks for this opportunity!
What a great concept for beginner-foragers: Learn 13 of the best, nutrient dense weeds first, then go from there. My Paternal Grandmother came over “from the Old Country (Poland) when she was a young woman. I remember loving the smell and site of her extra bedroom being full of fresh and drying “weeds”. She was a confident forager. Foraging is the next thing that I want to become proficient in. This book would be the perfect place to start.
We’ve newly moved to a new spot where I’ve started a veg garden and discovered the treat of lamb’s quarters and chickweed, growing amongst my planted choices. I’d love to learn more about these and others from this woman, whom I learned about in the NYT book review last month. Thanks for offering this great-sounding read! 🙂
I love the sustainability of wild foraging! And we live with many, many edibles, but I am just a little bit nervous to harvest them. Can’t wait to read the book and know we are harvesting safely.
This would help expand my knowledge in an interesting (and fun) direction. As a Montana Master Gardener I am fascinated with many aspects of the gardening process, but know very little about foraging. It would be great fun to learn!
I would love to win this book! I have just started working on learning to forage more. I spent most of last spring hunting wild asparagus in W Montana and found a very nice patch of lambs quarters in my yard (yum!)
Thank you!
This sounds like a great resource. I have read several things on forging wild edibles, but never knew how to use them. This would fix that!
I’d love to win this book. This would be such a useful skill to have, to be able to identify native plants and how they can best be used.
I’d like to enter the giveaway. I would love to win the book as it’s one of my goals this year to begin teaching my little ones to live off the land- sustainably. I’ve been introduced to permaculture and I’d like to learn as much as possible before spring arrives! Foraging is a great way to start living sustainably off the land. The idea that you just take what you need and let the rest grow is awesome! Sounds like a great book to have in the family library!!!
I will buy it. I just want to learn and pass on the lost arts of living well with nature.
During my recent genealogical search, I found my great-grandmother was what was referred to as a natural healer. She used everything in nature (prior to 1900) to help those around her.
I have been interested in learning more about foraging, what with my father’s stories of morel hunts! I have found most information available in library books and online lacking.
This book would exhibit dog eared pages and be well traveled!
Looks like a great book! As well as the info about each plant, I’m excited to see that there are recipes to use them also!
I would love to win this book! Why?, well, as a kid in the 70’s I would be so embarrassed when my friends would tease me about my grandma with knife and bag in hand walking across one of the main busy streets in our town, headed up the hills to get her “weeds”. Now that I am an adult I KNOW my grandma was one of the coolest and smartest people I ever knew and I am attempting to learn to be just like her!
Two words: food independence
I’m brand new to wild crafting with herbs so it would be great to have a guide book that goes in depth to th different “weeds” that are common. 🙂
I would love to win this book as my family and I are beginning our journey to a natural, sustainable living. This would be an invaluable resource for us.
I am learning about permaculture and want to also learn about the “weeds” that grow right along with evertyhing else. Thansk for the chance!
As a prepper, I would love to know more about edible plants around me! thanks for the chance to win
As an avid gardener, I would love to add this book to my library!
I know a few of these now. I actually grow dandelion and purslane in a container, and I know mallow and chickweed and lambsquarters. I have been looking for plantain, but have not found it yet.
This would be an awesome reference to have. We travel a lot for work, which makes carrying a lot of food storage tough. It also is difficult to keep up with the native plants in our current (ever-changing) environment. Seems like this would solve several problems!
Have really enjoyed getting into foraging over the past several years………I just LOVE it! This book would be well read, and used!
This is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere.
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Creo firmemente que estamos rápidamente encabezados por un tiempo en el que tendremos que ser tan independientes como sea posible. Las nuevas leyes de salud han hecho casi imposible ver a un Dr. Para muchas personas. Eso junto con un uso excesivo de antibióticos, etc. Nos convierte en objetivos orientales para muchas enfermedades y virus. Siempre he creÃdo que Dios nos dio todo lo que necesitamos en la naturaleza y sólo necesitamos entender cómo usarlo correctamente. La información es poder. Parece que este libro puede tener mucho poder.
Water droplets can form a river, a collection of grains of rice can meet the granary. Do not underestimate your own conscience, do not even think about not doing it even if it is very small.