Here is a food source, not yet fully explored, that may prove of great value as populations increase, for the total amount of photosynthesis carried on by marine algae may be ten times greater than the total of such activity in all land plants. If this is true, then we may well look to the plants of the sea as a rich, abundant, and relatively untapped source of foodstuffs.
In some parts of the world, for example Japan and China, algae have for many years been important items in the human diet. Farmers in many coastal regions cultivate brown algae on bamboo stems pushed into the ocean bottom in shallow waters. Dried preparations of these brown algae, available in many food stores in the United States, are very rich in minerals and also have moderate quantities of carbohydrates and vitamins.
Brown algae, because of their rich mineral content, also are often used as soil fertilizers (spread on fields and plowed under), or they may be dried and burned and their ash used as fertilizer. Some species are a commercial source of iodine for medicinal use.
This plant, sometimes called rough pigweed and commonly found in disturbed ground everywhere, is one of the best weeds for pumping nutrients from the subsoil.
Amaranth
Amaranth loosens the soil for such crops as carrot, radish, and beet. It helps potatoes yield more abundantly and is good to grow with onions, corn, pepper, and eggplant — but keep it thinned. Tomatoes grown with the weed are more resistant to insect attack.
Euell Gibbons says in his Stalking the Healthful Herbs that green amaranth has a higher iron content than any other green vegetable except parsley.
A type of amaranth grown widely in rural Mexico is known as “the sacred food of the Aztecs.” The small seeds, easily threshed from the large heads, can be baked with bread. Sometimes they are even popped, mixed with honey, and eaten as a confection. In India certain species are eaten as a salad or cooked like spinach, and the seed is ground into flour.
Amaranth (which is distantly related to beets) has a higher protein content than the cultivated beet, is higher in vitamin C, and has approximately the same amount of vitamin A.
Many asters are soil indicators. Some like low, moist soil, so if the bushy type (Boltonia asteroides) or the purple-stemmed aster (A. puniceus) shows up in your pastures or fields, it indicates a need for drainage. The sea aster (A. tripolium) grows on seasides and near salt mines and is a salt and soda collector. The poisonous woody aster (Xylorhiza parryi) of the West indicates an alkaline soil.
Most of us are familiar with the blackberry-dewberry family, Rubus, but one member has been neglected. The baked-appleberry, or cloudberry, is found growing in wet areas in acid peats from the Arctic regions southwest through New England. It bears a single, soft, pinkish berry, which grows on a 12-inch stem bearing a few scalloped leaves. The berries make a delicious fresh dessert, and may be preserved in jams or prepared as juice.
This useful weed grows on the poorest, stoniest soils and those that are sandy and slightly to medium acid. Being rich in calcium carbonate, the plant improves the soil through decomposition of its leaves and stems. In a thin stand it will provide shelter for young tree seedlings, but it will choke them out if too many of the weeds are present.
Do not allow wild burdocks to grow, since they are robbers of the soil. Particularly do not allow them to go to seed, for the burrs will adhere to the hair of sheep, horses, and dogs, even clothing, and be spread far and wide.
Burdock roots have medicinal value and are said to alleviate gout and skin diseases. An edible burdock (‘Takinogawa’) has been developed in Japan, where the cooked roots are greatly relished for their refreshing, pungent flavor. The Japanese also value this burdock for its reputed blood-purifying qualities and the relief it is said to give to sufferers of arthritis. (It is available from Nichols Garden Nursery; see Sources.)
It is said that mosquitoes are never found in swamps or other standing water in which calamus, sometimes called sweet flag or sweet root, is growing.
Charlock or wild mustard is frequently found in grainfields. The seeds and those of wild radish can lie inert in the ground for 50 to 60 years, showing up again when the field is planted to grain, particularly oats.
The cinquefoils are considered a bad symptom when found on pastureland, for they indicate a very acid soil, and gradually they will choke out other grasses and clovers. They are very persistent and will last when other grasses are burned out by drought. It has been observed that the butternut or gray walnut tree (Juglans cinerea) and the black walnut have an inhibitory effect on the growth of the creeping cinquefoil.
Cinquefoil
Like other members of its family, the common meadow buttercup secretes a substance in its roots that poisons the soil for clover by inhibiting the growth of nitrogen bacteria. So potent is this secretion that clover in time will disappear if buttercups begin to invade the field. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant, and children should be warned against biting the buttercup’s stem and leaves, which are capable of raising blisters.
The garden monkshood (Aconitum) is even more dangerous, being poisonous in all its parts, while other members of this family that are more or less poisonous are delphinium, columbine, and peony. They are beautiful, but grow them with care.
This funny little plant escaped from eastern gardens where it was grown as an ornamental. The milky juice once was thought to be effective against warts, and it is used in France as a laxative. Here the plant has become a weed. Do not let it grow near grapes, since it may cause the vines to become sterile, and cattle eating hay containing the spurge are made ill.
Dandelion likes a good, deep soil, as do clover and alfalfa. Soil around dandelions is attractive to earthworms, for this plant is a natural humus producer.
Dandelion
Dandelions on your lawn may frustrate, but actually they are not in competition with the grasses because their three-footdeep roots take nutrients from a different level of the soil. They penetrate hardpan and bring up minerals, especially calcium, depositing them nearer the surface and thus restoring what the soil has lost by washing. When dandelions die, their root channels act like an elevator shaft for earthworms, permitting them to penetrate deeper into the soil than they might otherwise.
Dandelions exhale ethylene gas, which limits both the height and growth of neighboring plants. It also causes nearby flowers and fruits to mature early.
Datura
Other names for this weed are Jamestown weed, jimsonweed, apple of Peru, thorn apple, stinkweed, devil’s trumpet, angel’s trumpet, and dewtry. Although all parts of datura are poisonous, it is a source of valuable medicine. The weed is especially helpful to pumpkins and it protects other plants from Japanese beetles. The smoke from dried datura leaves is calming to honeybees when opening a hive, but use it sparingly.
Although classed as a nettle, this plant, sometimes called white archangel, has no relation to stinging nettle and does not sting. A similarity of the leaves may be the reason for its name. Dead nettle has a long season of showy white bloom and is one of the few herbs that will also grow in damp places in filtered sunlight. As such, it is a valuable companion for the garden and for grain crops.
There are nineteen species of this native North American weed that have valuable insecticidal properties. It is low in toxicity to animals, but is reputed to contain a fish poison. Wild turkeys are fond of eating the plant.
Curled dock is both a food and a medicine. In the old days it was gathered to “thin and purify the blood” in the spring of the year. There is no evidence to support this claim, but the high vitamin C content of dock undoubtedly was beneficial, particularly after a winter diet deficient in greens. The greens also are richer in vitamin A than carrots.
Dock is good to calm the pain of stinging nettle. Crush the juicy leaves and rub on the affected area.
Once this was considered a very useful plant for dyeing. Bees like it for its honey and sheep and goats like to graze it, but it is thought that its bitter taste affects the milk of cows that eat it.
Eelgrass has an edible grain and is a widely distributed sea plant along the coasts of North America and Eurasia. It is reportedly harvested in spring by the Seri Indians along the Gulf of California in Sonora, Mexico.
The upper stem fruits in the spring, then breaks off and floats on the surface of the water. The Seri harvest the grain when large quantities of the plant are found floating loose near the shore.
Eelgrass has a content of protein and starch similar to that of grains grown on land. Once it is dry, it is separated from the seaweed with which it grows, and the grains are toasted and ground into flour. Cooked into a gruel, it may be eaten with honey. It is the only ocean plant known that has a grain used as a human food resource.
The Seri find many other uses for the eelgrass, one of which is a cure for diarrhea. It is also piled over house frames for shade and made into toys for the children. Others find it makes an excellent mulch for garden or orchard.
Fresh-water eelgrass (Hydrocharitaceae, genus Vallisneria, species americana), also known as tapegrass and wild celery, grows in the mud of shallow ponds, sending up ribbonlike leaves directly from the root. (See Sources.)
A few well-placed plants of caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus) will deter moles and mice and thus are good to plant near young fruit trees. They also are useful to repel rats and mice. Many of the spurge family like dry, light, sandy soils but will spread to cultivated land if given a chance.
Injury to stem or leaves of the euphorbias causes them to exude a milky-looking sap that is very acrid and poisonous. Great care should be taken that the sap does not touch a scratch, as it will even cause blisters on delicate skin. However, the juice of the leafy spurge (E. elsula) and the cypress spurge have been used against warts.
Snow-on-the-mountain, one of the euphorbias, is an attractive annual plant that grows wild from Minnesota to Texas. Poinsettia, another lovely member of this family, was formerly considered highly toxic, but is no longer classed as a poisonous plant.
My beloved old Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America, Seventh Decennial Revision, 1890, speaks of this fern eloquently, referring to its taste as “sweetish, acrid, somewhat bitter, astringent and nauseous.” It does not, however, say that fern seed will make you invisible, as the Doctrine of Signatures once stated.
That ferns have medicinal value has been recognized for centuries and they are still listed in the Pharmacopoeia today, the useful species including also the evergreen wood fern (D. marginalis). In the autumn the roots are carefully dug, cleaned, and dried and the substance oleoresin is extracted through the use of ether.
Perhaps it is because of the oleoresin that ferns and beeches (Fagus) have an inhibiting effect on each other. However, a compost made of ferns assists tree seeding and is useful to tree nurseries to encourage germination.
Sometimes called bracken, fiddlehead fern is another sprout-type wild food. This coarse fern has a single thick base stalking into three distinct curled fronds growing several inches from the ground. This fern is found in low, moist land from Canada southward into Virginia. To gather, snap off the coiled fiddleheads. The coat of fuzz is easily removed by pulling each head through your fingers.
Cook the fiddleheads in boiling water for about an hour, season with pepper, salt, and melted butter, oil and vinegar, or sour cream. Some people like to nibble the fern heads raw. They may also be cooked like asparagus or fresh beans.
Mature fronds may be toxic to grazing animals but as long as the ferns are coiled and tender, we may eat them.
This is one of our native plants that have spread to Europe and taken possession of stony soils. It is used for medicinal purposes, and the acrid oil as a mosquito repellent. But some people are allergic to this plant, reacting to it as they would to poison ivy.
Fungi are plants without chlorophyll — some are very useful and even edible, others are very troublesome.
Mushrooms have a natural affinity for plants in woods, fields, and meadows. The part of the mushroom we see is just a small portion of the entire plant. Most of it is underground, a tangled, twisted jungle of threads that form the vegetative part of the plant (mycelium). The mushroom itself is the reproductive part, the fruiting body, which grows easily under the right conditions of moisture and temperature.
My sister-in-law in Missouri once brought home some morels from her father’s farm and took them outdoors to her backyard to trim. She threw the pan of trimmings under an apple tree in her small orchard and was surprised sometime later to find morels growing thriftily there. They continued to come up intermittently for several years.
The delicious morels are fairly common in the United States. The fruit body, like that of other mushrooms, grows above the ground and resembles a sponge. Because of this, they are easy to identify and safe for the collector to gather for the table. They are often found in apple orchards just about the time the trees are blossoming.
Morchella elata
Morchella semilbera
Many mushrooms are deadly poison and no one who is inexperienced should ever gather them for food. The deadly amanita, sometimes called the destroying angel, can cause death in less than six hours. Yet many of the poisonous mushrooms also serve a purpose in promoting healthy growth on other plants.
Truffles, another type of fungus, grow several inches below the ground and are not visible. They are rare in the United States but are quite common in Spain, England, Italy, and France, where they grow under oak and chestnut trees. Here they are found by dogs and pigs specially trained to locate them by smell. Should you see a French farmer following a pig on a leash, this is simply a routine way of picking truffles, which sell for fantastic prices.
Because of their close association with oak and chestnut trees, scientists believe that the truffles help the tree roots assimilate chemicals from the soil. Truffles vary from 1 ⁄4 inch to 4 inches in diameter and resemble an acorn, a walnut, or a potato. The spores are borne within the tuberlike body of the fungus. They have a delicious taste and serve as a condiment. They are black and thus very attractive as a garnish for salads.
Fungus on tree roots first was reported in 1885 by the German botanist A. B. Frank. His belief that water and nutrients were entering the tree through the fungus was scoffed at, but we know today that the fungus acts as a link between the soil and the rootlets of the plant. The tree in turn helps the mycorrhizal fungus by providing root metabolites, substances that are vital to the fungus for the completion of its full life cycle. Harmless tree fungi called saprophytes help trees to resist such diseases as bark canker, decay fungi, and leaf rust fungus.
Mildews are a type of fungi that can be extremely troublesome and difficult to control when they form on plants, usually due to combined moisture and humidity. They attack grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, roses, peas, tobacco, potatoes, cucumbers, and many other fruits and vegetables, usually forming a gray or white, powderlike coating on the surface of the leaves. I have found that it is possible to partly control this fungus with a dusting of wettable sulphur. Sunshine and good air circulation is the best remedy.
Smut is a fungus that attacks such grains as wheat, barley, rye, corn, and oats. It looks like a large sac or tumor among the kernels when it appears on an ear of corn. The sac contains a large mass of black spores.
Smuts act on the host plant in a different way from most parasitic fungi. The mycelium that grows among the cells of the host stimulates them to produce a swelling, or gall. The spores develop as a black mass within the gall and are thrown into the air when the gall breaks.
Smuts are difficult to control as, unlike the spores of any other fungi that attach themselves to the seed, these lie dormant in the ground through the winter. In the spring new kinds of spores are germinated and reinfect the corn plants. Treating the seed is seldom effective in preventing corn smut. The best answer seems to be crop rotation, along with the development and use of strains of corn that are smut-resistant.
Meadow garlic’s very penetrating taste and odor give a bad taste to milk if eaten by cows, and the bulblets in wheat will spoil the flour. It’s hard to eradicate because the little bulbs grow deeper and deeper into the soil with the passing years. If pastures or fields are badly infested, crop rotation is recommended.
But even wild garlic has a definite health value, and medicines derived from it are useful against high blood pressure and sclerosis.
Ginger grows in rich woods from Virginia to Minnesota on a low plant with root cords extending from a knotty but superficial root. The leathery leaves, mottled green, are heart-shaped, growing on tough, hairy stalks. A reddish brown, cup-shaped flower blooms during April and May at ground level, emerging between two-leaf stalks. Gingerroot is best dug in October when the roots are full and are better for candied ginger at this time.
Wild ginseng needs the companionship of trees to provide the filtered sunlight it requires to grow. When raised in beds for commercial use, it is covered with latticework to protect it from the heat of the sun, which would kill it.
The Chinese believe that ginseng will cure nearly every disease, yet even now Western science is not sure whether it has real value or not. Physicians regard its benefits as largely psychological, but tests in Russia and elsewhere indicate that infusions of the root actually may increase energy and resistance to infection.
There are more than 60 native species of goldenrods, some growing on dry soil low in humus, others on soil that is rich and moist. If you would eliminate the goldenrod, cut it before it goes to seed and improve your soil with organic matter and beneficial crops.
Henbane, like hemp, is an ancient narcotic that was once used to treat disease, but escaped to become naturalized in some parts of the country. The drug hyoscyamine, used to dilate the pupils of the eyes, is made from black henbane.
This poisonous herb is fatal to fowl, hence its name “henbane.” All parts of the plant contain poisonous alkaloids, and even hogs sometimes are killed by eating its fleshy roots.
The horsetails are the last remainder of the huge trees of the carboniferous forests. The most common is the field horsetail, which grows in sandy and gravelly soils on a high ground-water level.
Horsetail looks like a tiny Christmas tree and sometimes is called the meadow pine. The hollow-branched, jointed stems range from one to three feet tall. The plant does not produce flowers or seeds but sends up fertile spore-bearing stems resembling catkins. These are covered with powdery brown spores. After the spores drop, small green shoots emerge from the ground. The perennial horsetail has a rootstock that bears tuberous growths that store available carbohydrate against a future need.
The green shoots of horsetail contain a high percentage of silica, the controlling factor against fungus disease. If the green stems are burned in a hot but quiet flame, removing all organic parts, the white skeleton of silica that is left will show the original structure of the little stems.
Silicic acid can be found in many plants such as stinging nettle and quack or couch grass, but some, including horsetail and knotweed (Polygonum aviculare), are particularly rich in it. It is this silica in horsetail that has made it valuable medicinally for centuries.
Silicic acid is traditionally believed to strengthen tissue, particularly that of the lungs, and at times to add to disease resistance. It has been reported to have a good influence on inflammation of the gums, the mouth, or the skin in general. Horsetail was specially recommended for diuretic purposes by Kneipp, the German priest who was so successful in using hydrotherapy in combination with herbs.
The ancient, primitive horsetail (called equisetum) makes a fine plant spray. The plants, containing much silica, also are used to scour pots and pans.
While horsetail itself will stop external bleeding, a horsetail brew also may be used as a healing agent for abscesses, burns, cuts, and scratches, for both animals and humans. Place a good handful of the dried leaves and stems in a stewpan with just enough vinegar (5 percent acidity) to cover. Simmer for no longer than 20 minutes, cool, and strain. Keep in the refrigerator. When needed for use, add 1 part brew to 2 parts cow or goat milk. Return any not needed to refrigerator. Horsetail brew is stingless, soothing, and gentle in its action. A plastic squeeze bottle may be used for convenient application.
A tea made of horsetail is very effective against mildew and other fungi found on fruit trees, grapevines, vegetables, and roses. It is gentle but swift in action and does not disturb soil life. Silicarich plants are valuable on the compost pile, too.
The parts used are the dried leaves and stems of the sterile form. Boil 2 or 3 teaspoons of the crumbled herb to a cup of water for 20 minutes. Or soak the leaves in water for several hours, boil for 10 minutes, and steep for another 10.
Made into a spray, it is particularly useful against powdery fungus and curly leaf on peach trees. It also controls mildew on roses, vegetables, grapes, and stone fruits, and has been found to have a cellstrengthening action on the plants sprayed with it.
According to Beatrice Trum Hunter’s Gardening Without Poisons, silica in the form of an aerogel is one of our most effective insecticides. It may be used against the flour beetle, rice weevil, granary weevil, and the larva of the Mediterranean flour moth.
Horsetails have still another use: Their high silica content makes them effective as “scouring brushes” for pots and pans, and campers still find them usually available and convenient for this purpose. In German-speaking countries horsetail was called Zinnkraut, or “pewter plant,” because the high silica content made it useful for cleaning and scrubbing copper, brass, pewter, and all fine metals.
Indian cucumbers are found from the Great Lakes eastward and south to Florida in rich woodlands. They are good eaten raw, cubed in salad, or pickled. “They grow in sociable groups,” says Grace Firth in A Natural Year, “and, like other sociables, are best when mildly pickled.”
The single slender stems of Indian cucumbers grow out of a whorl of five or seven dark, elongate, visibly ribbed leaves. The spindly cream-colored flowers are followed by small black berries. The roots grow horizontally just below the ground surface, making the cucumbers easy to dig.
Jewelweed is an excellent remedy for poison ivy, relieving the itching almost instantly. It does not have an adverse effect on the poison ivy plants, for the two often grow side by side. In fact, wherever poison ivy grows, jewelweed is likely in the vicinity. It blooms between July and September.
To make the remedy, boil a potful of jewelweed in water until the liquid is about half the original volume. The strained juice is effective both in preventing the rash after exposure and in treating the rash after it has developed. The best way to keep the extract is frozen and stored in cubes in the freezer. Pack them in small plastic bags and they will be at hand if needed.
Jewelweed
The young, tender sprouts of jewelweed are edible and are cooked like green beans.
These members of the Buckwheat family grow mostly on acid soils. The prostrate knotweed, frequently found in garden borders and along paths, doesn’t mind being trampled on. All knotweeds are characterized by “knots” on their stems from which branches grow. Knotweeds in pastures are thought to be troublesome to sheep. They also inhibit the growth of turnips, and are very rich in silica.
This plant, sometimes called smooth pigweed, is one of our most enduring annual weeds, producing a tremendous amount of seeds that are able to survive dormant in the soil for decades. It is among the weeds that follow human footsteps and cultivation, liking a soil with a well-fermented humus.
Lamb’s-quarters is particularly stimulated when grown with potatoes, and it should be allowed to grow in the garden in moderate amounts, especially with corn. It also aids cucumber, muskmelon, pumpkin, and watermelon as well as giving additional vigor to zinnias, marigolds, peonies, and pansies.
This plant, a close relative of spinach, also is good to eat. The young shoots may be cooked and eaten like asparagus. It is richer in vitamin C than spinach, far richer in vitamin A, and, though not quite so rich in iron and potassium, is still a good source of these minerals. It is exceptionally rich in calcium.
Lamb’s-quarters is a freebie that everyone should know about, for it is found in cultivated ground from north to south and east to west, and plants in the right stage for eating can usually be found from late spring until frost. It even grows in the Andes at a height of 12,000 feet, and here has become an important substitute for rye and barley, which cannot survive at such an altitude.
Wild larkspur is detrimental to cattle and too much may cause poisoning. Barley as a crop, however, is a weed deterrent and will prevent wild larkspur or poppy from establishing itself. It is thought to promote vigor in winter wheat.
Locoweed gets its name from the Spanish word for crazy, due to the strange actions of animals poisoned by it.
Strangely enough, the poisonous effect of locoweed depends on the soil in which the plants grow, because of their ability to absorb poisonous elements from the soil. Both the green and the dry plants are poisonous, the symptoms varying somewhat in horses, cattle, and sheep.
Horses become dull, drag their legs, seldom eat, lose muscle control, become thin, and then die. Cattle react similarly, but sometimes they run about wildly, or stagger and bump into objects in their path. Sheep are less apt to be injured by the poison.
Ranchers destroy locoweed by cutting the roots about two inches below the surface.
Sometimes called old maid’s bonnets, wild pea, or sundial, the plant has vivid blue flowers, sometimes pink or white, with a butterfly shape that indicates its membership in the Legume family.
Farmers once thought that lupines preyed upon the fertility of their soil; hence the name derived from lupus, “a wolf.” In fact, they help the growth of corn, as well as most other cultivated crops.
Lupines grow best on steep, gravelly banks or exposed sunny hills, liking almost worthless land where their roots can penetrate to surprising depths, in time leaving behind them fine, friable soil. They are adventurous pioneers, spreading far and wide in thrifty colonies, and are among the first plants to grow on the barren pumice after a volcanic eruption.
The lupine is one of those interesting flowers that go to sleep at night. Some fold their leaflets not only at night but also during the day when there is movement in the leaves. Sundial, a popular name for the wild lupine, refers to this peculiarity. Among the nearly 100 kinds of lupines that grow in North America, some contain poisonous alkaloids, while the seeds of others can be eaten.
Sometimes this is called dog fennel or fetid camomile because of its evil smell. Beekeepers used to rub it into their skin to repel bees. It also will repel fleas and may be rubbed into floors and walls of a granary to repel mice.
The roots of all members of the Lychnis family contain saponin, which produces a soapy foam if stirred in water. Before the invention of soap these roots, together with those of the true saponaria, were used for washing. An interesting family member is the sleepy catchfly, so called because its flowers are closed most of the day, opening only in bright sunshine, while the gluey substance on its stems entangles flies.
Mildew is a fungus of the type called an “obligate parasite” because it feeds on living plants. When moisture conditions are just right, wind-carried spore (little seeds) resting on a plant’s leaves send out germ tubes, which grow into white threads (mycelia). These branch over the leaves in a white, soft, felty coating.
This type of fungus does not grow inside the plant but sends its little suckers (haustoria) into the plant’s sap. As chains are built up from the mycelium spore, the plant becomes covered in a few days. Eventually black fruiting bodies with the sexual or “overwintering” spores are formed.
Because it is on the surface, mildew is more easily controlled than many other fungi, and horsetail tea is an excellent spray to use (see Horsetail in this chapter). During the season when green plants are available, it is also good to prepare an extract by covering freshly picked plants with water. Allow them to ferment for about 10 days, then dilute the liquid and use it as a spray in the same way as the tea. Mustard seed flour or sulphur dust also may be used, while polybutenes, oil derivatives, have been used successfully to control powdery mildew on cucurbits.
All of the many milkweeds exude milky juice when their leaves or stems are punctured. Roots are considered poisonous, but Native Americans have used them for various maladies, and some say that the juice cures warts or ringworm. Cows dislike the bitter, acrid plants but may eat them if hard-pressed for food.
This parasite is the most legendary of plants. It was sacred to the ancient Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle (the symbol of the sun) and caught it in a cloth to prevent it from touching the ground.
Mistletoe grows on apple trees, oaks, and poplars, usually being sown by birds. Here in Oklahoma it is our state “flower” and grows profusely on hackberry trees.
People used to call the mistletoe “all heal” and thought there was no illness it could not cure. It is in fact poisonous, particularly the berries. If you find it growing on your trees, remove it, for it is a parasite and eventually will weaken the tree and possibly kill it.
See Stinging Nettle.
The Nightshade family includes apple-of-Sodom, belladonna, bittersweet, capiscum, eggplant, jimsonweed (datura), petunia, potato, snakeberry, tobacco, and tomato.
Where black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) grows profusely, the soil is tired of growing root crops. This plant draws the Colorado potato beetle away from potatoes, since they prefer the weed though it is poisonous. The beetles eat it and die.
The botanical name, Cyperus esculentus, means “edible sedge.” Nut grass is related to the tules and bulrushes and is almost as old as civilization. The ancient Egyptians developed cultivated strains more than five thousand years ago. The “nut”, which is really a tuber, may be made into many tasty and unusual dishes. But consider well before growing this plant, for it can become a fearful weed. Having battled against it in my garden for many years, I have come to the conclusion that this is a plant only Euell Gibbons could love.
If the native species of nut grass plagues you, it can be discouraged by growing a heavy cover crop of cowpeas on the plot for several summers. Sow the cowpeas thickly to form a dense mat that shades the ground. Plow them under in late fall, in October or November, and they will add nitrogen to the soil. St. Augustine grass will choke out nut grass on a lawn.
In the Southwest and Mexico, people eat the flat-leaved joints on opuntia cactus boiled or fried, and make the flowers into salads. The juicy fruits of opuntia are eaten raw or cooked; the seeds are ground up into a meal and made into cakes. The bushy cacti grow in hedges around houses, and where little else will survive they serve as windbreaks and ground cover.
In some regions in times of drought ranchers “burn off” the cactus spines so that cattle may eat the plants. Plant breeder Luther Burbank developed a spineless cactus that proved to be a useful source of food for both men and animals, and in some sections of California the opuntia type is a commercial crop. It is grown on sandy loam, fertilized with chicken manure, and needs no insecticides. The crop of young leaves, which measure about eight inches long at one to two months, are hand-picked to be sold diced, shredded, and spiced, or pickled.
Opuntia
Almost all of the many useful species of cactus will grow well with each other, requiring the same type of soil and cultural practices. Many have beautiful delicate blossoms and are grown as ornamentals, and there is a subzero cactus of the opuntia type that will grow in the North. (See Sources.)
Ox-eye daisy seeds are beneficial in small quantity mixed (1 to 100) with wheat grains, but in larger quantity the daisy will overwhelm the wheat.
The wild form of the cultivated pansy is Shakespeare’s “heartsease,” and once was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia as a medicine. Many species of viola were candied as a sweet and were thought to be soothing and therapeutic to the heart.
Rye helps the wild pansy to germinate and is itself seemingly improved by a few pansies. But the pansy has an inhibiting effect on wheat.
These quick-growing, rangy trees rarely exceed 20 feet but bear large, outsized leaves. The fruit usually falls to the ground before it is good to eat but will ripen if held at room temperature. Mashed pawpaws may be made into a bread similar to banana bread.
Like shepherd’s purse, this is often abundant where grain is grown. The seeds are 20 percent oil, and if accidentally ground with grain will spoil the flour. Mountain pennycress (Thlaspi alpestre var. calaminare) likes soils containing zinc.
When planted in quantity near a barn or in a stableyard it will repel flies, and it also is effective against whitefly.
See Amaranth in this chapter.
Plantain
Of the many different plantain species, the largebracted plantain (P. aristata) is the most prolific, one plant producing well over 3,000 seeds.
The narrow-leaved (P. lanceolata) has been used as a home remedy for treating bruises and strained joints. It also has a cooling and astringent effect if a few leaves are squeezed over a bee sting.
Plantain and red clover frequently are found growing together, this because the plantains occur as impurities in grass and clover seeds. If plantains appear on the lawn, it is best to dig them out.
Poison ivy
Jewelweed will relieve the itching of poison ivy (see Jewelweed ). If your land has poison ivy, the best thing you can do is eradicate it. Mow close to the ground in midsummer and follow this with plowing and harrowing, grubbing out small patches. Under trees or along a fence where mowing might be difficult, try smothering it with heavy cardboard or tar paper. A deep mulch of hay or straw may work as well.
Vines growing in trees may be cut near the ground and then pulled down a few days later. Be sure to wear gloves and protective clothing, washing well afterward, preferably with yellow soap.
I find that pokeweed grows well under my figs, Scotch pines, and other trees. Pokeberries and roots are poisonous, but the tiny, pinkish green, asparagus-like shoots are simply delicious. Poke is one of the first greens to come up in early spring, and these shoots should be cooked lightly in several changes of water. The berries and roots contain phytolaccin, a cathartic and slightly narcotic substance used for treating rheumatism.
Pokeweed
Poke should never be confused with the completely unrelated Indian poke, or white hellebore. This latter plant, also poisonous, grows in wet places and comes up very early in the spring before the edible poke starts growing.
There is a wealth of wild greens available in April. Most of these belong to the Mustard family, Cruciferae, so called because their flower petals form a cross. The mustard cousins, Brassica, together with strong-growing young shoots of peppergrass (Lepidium), horseradish (Armoracia lapathifolia), pennycress (Thlaspi arvens), searocket (Cakile edentula), scurvy grass (Cochlearia), and other cress greens are a gift of spring to those who love to search for wild greens. Cook them as you would turnip greens or spinach. If their turnipy-horseradishy flavor is a bit much for you, combine them with milder greens such as young amaranth (Amaranthus), Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum), or dayflowers (Commelina communis). Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) also combines well. Gather potherbs when the shoots are very young. You may wish to cook them through several waters.
Sometimes these “smoke balls” or “devil’s snuffboxes” grow to be more than two feet across. A cut that is bleeding profusely may be covered with the powderlike spores from those that produce a puffor “smoke” when disturbed, and it will stop the bleeding. Puffball powder is very explosive, so if you store it, keep the container closed and away from fire.
Purslane has a liking for good cultivated soil and is frequently found in gardens. But it is not altogether unwelcome, for though often considered a weed, it is cultivated in both England and Holland. It is a refreshing green with a slightly acid taste, and it may be cooked like spinach. One hundred grams of purslane contains 3.5 milligrams of iron, and this is all the more remarkable because the plant is 92.5 percent water.
Pyrethrum is absolutely bugproof and will keep pests from plants close by. Few ticks are ever found where pyrethrum or sage forms a ground cover. Pyrethrum powder, generally considered a safe insecticide, is made from the dried flowers. It has a very short residual action, breaking down rapidly in sunlight. Because of this it can be used as a preharvest spray.
Records show that pyrethrum may have been used nearly two thousand years ago in China. As an insect repellent it became popular again in the nineteenth century, when it was the “secretingredient” in Persian insect powder. In 1828 this powder was produced on a commercial scale and introduced into Europe by an Armenian trader. By 1860 it was becoming well known in the United States.
The active principles in pyrethrum are the esters pyrethrin and cinerin. Certain nontoxic plant products such as asarinin (from the bark of southern prickly ash), sesamin (from sesame oil), and peperine (from black pepper) are added to pyrethrum to strengthen its effect.
This weed is valuable for its soil-improving qualities, but one variety, C. sagittalis, found on bottomland in the Missouri and Mississippi basin, is very poisonous to cattle and horses and should be eradicated. Following its cutting or plowing under, plant a crop like cotton or corn that needs repeated cultivation.
This common pasture plant contains a red oil sometimes used as a home remedy for bronchitis and chest colds. It also is astringent and has been used against diarrhea and dysentery. The leaves have oily cells and a strong, peculiar smell. They look perforated if held against the light. It was once believed that if the plant was collected during St. John’s Night (June 24), it would afford protection against witches and evil spirits.
Shepherd’s purse is very rich in minerals. Along with mustard, it absorbs excessive salts in the soil and returns them in organic form. If grown on a salty marsh and plowed under while still green, it will both sweeten the soil and discourage the weeds ordinarily growing on such soil. It has medicinal qualities and has been used as a styptic.
This plant has creeping, deep-growing roots, contains a milky, yellow-tinged juice, and grows on moist soil. It aids watermelon, muskmelon, pumpkin, and cucumber and in moderate amounts onions, tomatoes, and corn.
A cousin called blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus) has medicinal and industrial uses and is a basic ingredient of the Benedictine liqueur as well as certain bitter tonics.
See Euphorbia in this chapter.
Stinging nettle has many helpful qualities. It makes neighboring plants more insect-resistant. It also helps plants withstand lice, slugs, and snails during wet weather; strengthens growth of mint and tomatoes; and gives greater aromatic quality to herbs such as valerian, angelica, marjoram, sage, and peppermint. The nettle protects fruit from mold and thus enables it to keep better. Fruit packed in nettle hay ripens more quickly.
Stinging nettle
Stinging nettle is helpful to stimulate fermentation in compost or manure piles, according to British author M. E. Bruce, who advises making a crushed nettle solution. Good results can be had with less trouble by using the nettle in its original form, placing it in layers in the compost before the nettle seeds ripen. The plant is said to contain carbonic acid and ammonia, and these may be the factors that activate the compost. If you have the space, you might try raising a crop of nettle — somewhere away from the garden, for the plant spreads quickly.
Euell Gibbons reports that stinging nettles combined with young horseradish leaves are delicious as spring greens. They also combine well with lettuce or spinach. Since nettles are rich in vitamins and iron, they are a good remedy for anemia, while aiding blood circulation and acting as a stimulant.
The plant leaves, as rich in protein as cottonseed meal, are good for animals, too, though they will touch them only when the nettles are mowed and dried. Horses improve in health and cows will give more and richer milk. When powdered nettle leaves are added to their mash, hens will lay more eggs and the eggs will have a higher food value, chicks will grow faster, and turkeys will fatten. Even the manure from nettle-fed animals is better than that from others.
Be sure to wear gloves when picking young nettles, for the fine hairs on the leaves and stems contain formic acid, which irritates the skin when touched. Nettle rash can be relieved with the juice of the nettle plant itself, or by rubbing the skin with jewelweed, with rhubarb, or with any member of the Sorrel family.
Tansy, once used as a medicinal tea, is now considered dangerous if taken as an infusion (see the chapter on Poisonous Plants). It is also thought to be poisonous to cattle. But planted under fruit trees, particularly peach, it repels borers, and is a good companion to roses, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, and other cane fruits. It deters flying insects, Japanese beetles, striped cucumber beetles, and squash bugs, and helps repel flies and ants. The dried leaves are useful for storing woolens and furs. Because of its concentration of potassium, tansy is useful on the compost pile.
Tansy
Tansy also goes by the names of bitter buttons, ginger plant, hind heal, and scented fern. Its fernlike, attractive foliage is topped by composite heads of buttonlike flowers, and their scent is delightful. Though the roots have been used, it is the tops that are of primary importance.
Tansy once was used as a culinary herb in place of pepper, was widely used in churches in medieval times as a “strewing herb,” and is one of the plants associated with the Virgin Mary.
All thistles are rich in potassium and thus are useful in compost; but their prickly leaves make them unpopular in pasture, and certain types rob grainfields of food and moisture. To kill out thistles, be careful not to cut them before the blossoms are open or many more will grow from the rootstocks. If you cut just the blossom heads after the blossoms are pollinated, the plant will bleed to death.
Blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus) has medicinal and industrial uses, as well as being an insect repellent, while constituting a basic ingredient of the Benedictine liqueur and stomach bitters.
See Datura in this chapter.
Tillandsia (also called Spanish moss, though not a true moss) occurs naturally from Virginia to Florida and Texas and southward to Argentina and Chile. Though it may be seen on other trees, its favorite host is the live oak. It is not a parasite, sapping the life of the tree, but a lodger that finds its own food supply through slender, grayish stems that look like hair hanging from the trees. It is related to the air plants of the Bromelia or Pineapple family, which largely draw their sustenance from the air itself. It may be used for mulching or for compost. The dried stems also are used industrially to stuff upholstery.
This hungry little plant, which captures its own meals, must be grown in high humidity indoors or out. The insect traps on young plants, which develop in three to four weeks, consist of two leaves hinged in the center when open, and when closed forming a pouch in which the trapped insects are digested. When a leaf has caught several insects it withers and dies, but new ones take its place. Venus flytrap grows naturally in bogs where the soil lacks available nitrogen, and the insects supply this nutrient in the plant’s diet.
This tropical American plant has “escaped” and is now growing profusely in the southern states, sometimes choking ponds and streams with its growth of floating leaves. The roots hang down in the water and receive the spawn of fish. The lovely violet flowers are large and showy.
If you live in an area where water hyacinth has gone wild, you will benefit both yourself and the waterway by dredging it out and using it for compost.
The American water lily, related to the lotus, sends long, stout leaf and flower stalks from the mud bottom of clear, shallow water. The beautiful flowers usually rise above the water on long stalks and may be as large as a foot across. In cultivation, water lilies grow well in a mixed planting of other water plants. In the wild state they, like water hyacinth, sometimes threaten to choke shallow pools of water and should be dredged out and composted.
Someone once said, “A weed is a plant out of place,” but I am inclined to go along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who believed that “a weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” Weeds, wisely used, are some of our most important companion plants. Of course, they never should be allowed to overwhelm the food plants, but a few left here and there may surprise you by the influence they exert.
The extensive root growth of weeds penetrates the subsoil, breaking it up and making it easier for the roots of crop plants to go farther than usual as they search for water and nourishment. A few weeds are useful in shading the ground to keep seedling vegetables from drying out in the sun’s heat. Meanwhile, moisture from the subsoil will travel by capillary action up the outside of the weed roots to a level where the young vegetables can use it.
Deep divers such as pigweed, lamb’s-quarters, and thistles bring up minerals from the lower soil by way of their stalks and leaves. When these weeds are turned under, the minerals become available to shallower-rooting crops. Minerals, including trace minerals that may be leached away or become exhausted under a succession of crops, are thus retained.
Another interesting fact is that weeds seem to accumulate the nutrients in which a particular soil is deficient. Such weeds as sheep sorrel and plantain, which thrive best in acid soil, are rich in alkalinizing minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Bracken, which grows best in phosphorus-poor soil, is high in phosphorus. Turning these weeds under will release these minerals into the topsoil, again making them available to food plants.
Weeds also benefit the soil by conditioning it. Their extensive root sytems leave fibrous organic matter, which decays, adding humus to both topsoil and subsoil. Not only this, but they also leave channels for drainage and aeration. When decomposed, the root systems of dandelions provide subterranean channels for earthworms, which, in turn, enrich the soil with their castings. Soil texture is vastly improved and soil-inhabiting bacteria will multiply enormously.
Learning to read weeds can be very useful, for they are excellent indicators of the type of soil they select to grow on.
Weeds that delight in acid soil, and also indicate increasing acidity, are the docks, fingerleaf weeds, lady’s thumb, and sorrels. Horsetail indicates slightly acid soil, as do hawkweed and knapweed.
Weeds that indicate a crust formation and hardpan are pennycress, morning glory, horse nettle, field mustard, camomiles, quack grass, and pineapple weed.
Weeds most likely to occur on cultivated land are chickweed, buttercup, dandelion, lamb’s-quarters, plantain, nettle, prostrate knotweed, prickly lettuce, field speedwell, common horehound, celandine, mallows, rough pigweed, and carpetweed.
Sandy soils are favored by arrow-leaved wild lettuce, yellow toadflax, onions, partridge pea, broom bush, flowered aster, and most goldenrods.
On alkaline soils we are apt to find sagebrush and woody aster, while limestone soils grow field peppergrass, hare’s ear mustard, wormseed, Canada bluegrass, cornelian cherry, pennycress, Barnaby’s thistle, mountain bluet, yellow camomile, and field madder.
If a plot of land grows healthy weeds, it will probably grow good vegetable crops, too. Let the weeds reach full growth but cut them before they go to seed. Let them wilt a few days and then plow them under for green manure.
You may even find it helpful to your compost pile to bring in extra weeds such as those cut by the highway department along public roadways. This largesse often includes such items as nettles, sunflowers, yarrows, and sweet clover. These should be thoroughly composted to kill their seeds before being placed on the garden.
Weeds are not necessarily our enemies. With good management, they may well become friends and coworkers.
Wild carrot does not always indicate bad soil, for its deep taproot implies a deep soil capable of good cultivation. A rich stand indicates a soil worth improving for crops. But it can become a pest, so prevent it from seeding by cutting the plant close to the ground shortly after pollination. Do not cut too early or many plants will spread out from the root.
We have it from Native Americans that wild morning glory is beneficial to corn, but if allowed to go to seed it can become a great pest, coming up for years afterward. It may be killed out by spraying a little white vinegar into the center of each vine.
Wild morning glory
Wild parsnip is a nourishing food plant that will give a good yield even on poor soils, but it soon becomes a weed and is hard to eradicate. The cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) is poisonous.
Wild radish spreads quickly in soils worn out from growing too many grain crops and depleted in nitrogen. It flourishes well, especially in wet years, where manure is scarce and potassium fertilizer abundant. Nevertheless, cattle are very fond of it, and it produces a good honey as well as an oil from the seed.
When this pretty weed migrates from hedgerows to pastures, it indicates the pasture has not been grazed adequately and needs mowing and harrowing. The prickly canes are troublesome to sheep and cattle but do not particularly bother goats, which love all kinds of rosebushes. To eradicate, cut the canes while they are still soft.
Wild strawberries are small, but have a delicious flavor quite unlike any other. Their presence in pastureland is an indicator of increasing acidity.
Yarrow is a plant of both mystery and history. For centuries the Chinese mystic has cast yarrow stalks when consulting the I Ching.
Yarrow
According to the Bio-Dynamic book Companion Plants, yarrow has a definite effect on the quality of neighboring plants, increasing not so much their size as their resistance to adverse conditions, and thereby improving their health. It is a good companion for medicinal herbs, enhancing their essential oils and increasing their vitality. It is also said to help cuts to heal.
Yarrow also gives nearby plants resistance to insects, perhaps because of its acrid, bitterly pungent odor.
Yarrow tea or yarrow hay is helpful to sheep, and I have given it to milk goats after kidding. It will grow almost anywhere and under any conditions and does not mind being walked upon. Where it grows in lawns and is cut by the mower, it simply spreads out in a low growth.