One of my absolute favorite wild veggies is orache, an herbaceous, annual member of the genus Atriplex that grows in the alkaline soil of Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas. Oraches are salt-loving plants, so in addition to salt playas in landlocked regions, species can also … [Read more...]
Cattail heart & tomato salads
The renowned forager and writer Euell Gibbons called cattails “the supermarket of the swamps,” and from that moniker other nicknames have emerged, among them “the Walmart of the swamps.” Although evoking Walmart doesn’t help me to connect with my joy for wild plants, the … [Read more...]
Whitetop mustard bud clusters
I’d been meaning to try eating whitetop, aka hoary cress (Cardaria spp., Lepidium draba or related Lepidium sp.)—an invasive plant targeted for eradication in many parts of the West. It saddens me to see whitetop taking over entire fields; I always wonder what plants might grow … [Read more...]
Spring plant tour: Frisco, Colorado
It's been funny weather up here in the high country lately. Where we live at 10,000 feet, it has been snowing fat, clumpy, wet flakes for days. Then yesterday, late morning, I headed to Frisco through pouring rain to survey some trails. At my first stop, it was snowing and … [Read more...]
Let us appreciate wild lettuce
Foraging prickly lettuce is an art, and one I look forward to each spring, ever since the day I graduated from beat-up, bitter rosettes to the tender carpets of young lettuce greens found in fields and old agricultural places on the plains. An introduced Eurasian species, … [Read more...]
