Edible Weeds You Can Find In Your Own Garden

The only real difference between a garden weed and a wild plant is personal preference. What some people might see as a nuisance, wiser gardeners and chefs will spot as an opportunity for foraging in your own back yard. While you should be very careful not to try eating just any plant without knowing what it is, here’s a list of edible weeds that might be right behind your house, just waiting to be eaten.

Dandelion

Yes, the humble dandelion, the most hated of garden weeds, is actually edible. Traditionally, this pesky plant was brewed as a tea to treat a number of ailments, and for good reason. It’s filled with healthy vitamins and is good for liver health in particular.

Stinging Nettle

One of the least welcome plants in any garden is the stinging nettle, as touching this plant will cause sore hives at the point of contact with your skin.

Brave the risk of stings to harvest the plant, though, and it can be boiled as a soup or ground into a pesto that’s good for urinary infections and kidney stones.

Chickweed

Chickweed, with its tiny yellow flowers and small green leaves, has a taste that’s not entirely unlike spinach, and as such, it can be used in all the ways that spinach would normally be cooked. It contains Vitamins A and C, as well as magnesium, potassium, and calcium.

White Clover

White clovers have many uses. They can be boiled into a tea, or can be baked into cookies and pastries, as they provide a vanilla-like flavor. You can even go the extra mile and grind them down into flour if you don’t want to deal with the fact that your cookie has an obvious plant leaf in it.