To connect with nature and its cycles, spend time outdoors observing changes in animal and plant patterns from season to season. Embrace seasonal eating as a means of connecting with nature. Careful observation reveals that nature provides what our bodies need most in each season.
Did you notice the first signs of springs where you live?
Here is what to look for when you are venturing outdoors to get the ingredients for your wild salad:
Dandelion
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is one of the earliest plants to emerge as the Earth thaws, offering a rich history of culinary and medicinal uses. Every part of the dandelion, including leaves, blossoms, and roots, is edible. I prefer harvesting fresh leaves in early spring and roots in the fall.
With notably bitter leaves and cooling, drying energies, dandelion supports digestive enzymes, bile secretion, and liver detoxification. Enhance digestive function and eliminate winter toxins by incorporating dandelion leaves into your daily salad.
Wild Violet
Wild violet (Viola sororia or Viola odorata) is abundant, blooming among the first flowers in spring. The delicate flowers possess cooling and moistening qualities, making violet a nourishing plant rich in minerals and vitamins A and C. As an alternative or complement to nettles with less diuretic impact, violets are an excellent choice.
Chewing violets releases a cooling and soothing mucilage from the flowers and leaves, benefiting mucous membranes, especially in the digestive tract.
Viola influences the lymphatic system, aiding conditions like congested, swollen, or painful lymph nodes. An infusion of the delicate flowers helps resolve congestion. Governed by Venus, violets historically addressed throat ailments, utilizing their soothing mucilage.
Delightfully enhancing salads, violets can be infused in water for tea or vinegar, creating a refreshing spring tonic.
Cleavers
Cleavers (Galium aparine) Considered a pesky garden weed that sticks to cloth, cleavers is a nourishing herb with a special affinity for the lymph, kidneys, and bladder.
Cleavers, a salty herb with cooling and drying energy, is valuable for addressing damp stagnation conditions. It proves effective in moving and draining stagnation within the lymphatic system, making it particularly suitable for spring.
After the prolonged winter period, during which there’s a tendency to seek warmth and minimize movement, cleavers steps in to stimulate lymphatic movement and offer relief.
“It is a good remedy in the Spring, eaten (being first chopped small, and boiled well) in water-gruel, to cleanse the blood, and strengthen the liver, thereby to keep the body in health, and fitting it for that change of season that is coming.”
~ Nicholas Culpepper 1652
You can blend cleavers into pesto or in your smoothie, add it to your soup or infuse it in vinegar.
Chickweed
Chickweed, chickenwort, craches, maruns or winterweed, Stellaria media, growing in Galicia, Spain
Chickweed (Stellaria media) Considered a weed, chickweed thrives in fertile soil, often emerging around the compost pile in my garden. This low-crawling herb survives winter, making it one of the first plants to emerge as the days lengthen in spring. It pops up with tender leaves, although tenderness diminishes as it flowers, the plant remains edible.
Chickweed, a nutritious wild green, offers essential minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and zinc.
Energetically, chickweed is cooling and moistening, making it beneficial as an anti-inflammatory and demulcent vulnerary (wound-healing). Recognized for its effectiveness in soothing itchy skin, chickweed is a common choice for various skin conditions, including eczema, psoriasis, hives, rashes, wounds, bites, dandruff, dry skin, and mucous membrane inflammation.
For skin irritation, a fresh poultice of chickweed proves effective. To ensure access during winter or when fresh chickweed is unavailable, you can freeze it as a succus (plant juice) and store it as ice cubes. Internally, chickweed can be enjoyed as tea or added to salads.
Whether in salads, sandwiches, or blended into pesto for smoothies or juices, welcoming spring with backyard weeds can be a rewarding adventure, connecting the body to shifting seasons and providing the exact nourishment it needs.
