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...]
Denver mustard mania
I’m just back from a two-day spring foray in Denver, where I visited old places with old friends and new places with new friends, along with a few solo missions—looking for wild edible plants, of course. How nice it is to see spring springing up down low (around 5,000 feet), … [Read more...]
Eating yucca flowers
On Memorial Day last year we were still snowboarding at A-Basin, the snow drifts in the backyard were up to the life-sized metal deer’s neck, and the yuccas down Denver-way waited until late June to bloom. This year, the snow is gone except for a handful of high elevation chutes … [Read more...]