Wild Gardens

For years I’ve tried to keep a garden in my back yard. Nearly always, it has as good as failed for this or that reason…usually not lack of work.

Finally, I decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble here – especially after hearing that the only way my husband’s grandpa ever grew a garden there was to “cuss and hoe”.

I moved my gardening plot out to my parents’ farm, and it is doing quite happily:

 

But what to do with my old gardening plot? I forebore to take a picture of it, as you’d see nothing but bindweed, a mass of Egyptian onions, and leftover sheet metal.

About four years ago, I began to examine in earnest what was growing there and doing well.

The answer was comforting. I found many useful weeds.

I had dandelions, and catnip:

 

I had the Eygyptian onions, which act like weeds:

 

Garlic, which my neighbors complain about in their yards:

 

Violets:

 

Grape vines, which, even in bad years when they don’t bear, are useful for their leaves:

 

Besides this, I have a feast for the eye in my poppies and iris.  A few days after this, many more shades of iris bloomed – blues, yellows, dark and bright purples, creams and whites…

 

 

… and my roses, white, pink, and most of all, yellow  -

 

There are black currants, and most recently, black berries -

 

There is chamomile, spreading and spreading to areas where only ragweed used to grow -

 

I have besides giant ragweed, which used to be cultivated for it’s seeds, which were used to make bread.

I have goosefoot lambsquarters, which are a nice green.

There are wisps of asparagus, which if cut back properly next spring (I missed it last), may bear properly, and be worth cooking.

I am sure, if I continue to look around, I will see more and more “weeds” which would be suitable for my table.

 

In some future posts, I’ll be sharing some ways to use these things I’ve mentioned.

Good wild gardening to you!

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