"Chickweed gets its common name because chickens love it. Raw, it tastes like corn silk. I demonstrate this to school kids with a chicken imitation, then I grab the herb from the teacher's hand with my teeth and swallow it—corny, but consistent with the plant's flavor!"
-Wild Man Steve Brill
But you know what? I love it. And I can tell that I'm on my way to becoming a big fat plant nerd too. The future, my friends, is very bright.
In addition the purple deadnettle, the other plant growing all over the garden rows is chickweed (stellaria media, which means "little star"). When I was harvesting the deadnettle (a little too early) this morning, I noticed that the chickweed blossoms all seemed to have disappeared. "Maybe it really is moss," I thought. But, it turns out, chickweed flowers go to "sleep" at night, closing their buds to re-open in the morning! If that's not neat, I don't know what is.
Gather chickweed when the buds appear--so harvest time is now, even though it's scheduled for May. They are nutritious, and can be added to salads, or cooked as a potherb and treated like spinach. Chickweed contains calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, phosphorus, potassium, vitamins C and A, and saponins--helping us to absorb nutrients! According to Susun Weed, the plant is good at breaking stuff up--fat, tumors, and cysts. She also says that chickweed "opens us up to cosmic energies and gives us the inner strength we need to handle those energies." Pretty rad. Chickweed can also be used externally to treat eczema and varicose veins, and if ingested is an alterative (blood purifier). It also has a reputation as a diuretic and as a poultice for eye problems, like pink eye or conjunctivitis.
In order to get some of these fabulous vitamins and minerals into my system, I picked a bunch of chickweed, clover, and deadnettle and boiled it up for about 20 minutes. I added it to my pasta, along with some lightly sauteed home-grown oyster mushrooms (thanks to Meg!), and voila--my first herbal dish!
Sources
http://www.susunweed.com/Article_Chickweed-A-Star.htm
http://www.altnature.com/gallery/chickweed.htm
http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_chickweed.htm
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