Wild Edibles, part III

For those who garden or gather, this month is for you to try adding flowers to salads. One only need a base of favourite greens. I find baby spinach or mixed arugula greens works best, for flavour and texture. A light oil and vinegar dressing with celery or poppy seeds is best.

Then comes the best part: Any of dill flowers, chives and flowers, dandelion (petals only), calendula, chicory, nasturtium, daylily, violets, pansies and clover petals may be added to taste. Not all are needed nor desirable. Use what you have available.

Why not have an herbal tea too. Dried wild strawberries make a good tea but my favourite is sweetfern. Drying the plants intensifies the flavour. Crush a few in a small teapot that has been warmed. Pour boiling water over it, allowing it to steep. Strain and serve. Needs no sugar nor honey, but you decide.

Of course wild-gathered foods should be done mindful of contaminants such as exhaust and sprays.

Chicory flowers, by Martin Thomas
Daylily flower, by Martin Thomas






Viola tricolor, by Martin Thomas


Sweetfern, photo by Marian Munro

Grazing your Neighbourhood

Wildcrafting and wild edibles

As we move into the growing season, there is more and more interest in wildcrafting and wild harvesting. If this is your intention, there are a few factors to consider. A colleague of mine, Kate Frego in New Brunswick calls them the five Ps of grazing. I offer them to you as follows.

Plant: identification is key. Get yourself a field guide. Study it. Know the harmful species as well as those that are edible. Even safe ones, may not be palatable to you. We offer the NS Plants book as a free download: http://museum.novascotia.ca/Books

Place: Gathering food from a safe habitat is paramount. Sites beside a busy 100 series highway may have residues from vehicle exhaust, roadside or forest pesticides. These are not habitats safe for gathering food.

Proper: This P refers to the careful harvesting, in a sustainable manner. Species-at-risk of extinction in Nova Scotia should not be harvested for food. One example of this is the Wild Leek (Allium tricoccum or A. burdickii). With limited populations, it is unethical to harvest them for food. In addition plants should be collected in such a way that does not hinder their ability to recover from the harvest. Digging fiddleheads instead of cutting them individually, kills the plant. A rule of thumb is to take one in 10 for food.

Part of the plant is significant. For example, the potato plant produces red tomato-like fruit in addition to the familiar tuber, or swollen underground stem that we consume. The fruit is mildly toxic, while the tuber is definitely edible. Canada Yew seeds are deadly poison, yet the fleshy red aril surrounding the seeds is edible.

Preparation of the food collected for eating. Again using the fiddlehead example. These delicious spring greens must be cooked at high temperatures for 10-12 minutes after careful scrubbing. Lightly sauteeing or 2-3minutes in the microwave is insufficient to denature whatever chemical causes illness in some individuals.

Some of the edibles available in May in Nova Scotia include fiddleheads, chickweed leaves for salad, dandelion greens, violet flowers for salads and glazing.



Wild Leek in flower, photo by Ross Hall
Wild Yew, Taxus canadensis, photo by Ross Hall
chickweed, Stellaria graminea, photo by Martin Thomas

Favourite Spring Wildflowers

Spending my childhood as I did, outside and in the forests along a small brook, I soon developed favourites among the spring wildflowers. Violets especially intrigued me, springing up in cold soggy seeps. From pure white to the deepest purple, they ranged through all shades between. The yellow violets I did not discover until much later. My grandmother told me they could be dipped in water or lemon juice and powdered sugar then dried. She used them on cakes. I rarely let them dry! I still smile when I see Johnny-jump-ups. These hardy little ancestors of our pansies remind me of my grandmother.

Spring-beauty (Claytonia carolinana) is another childhood favourite. At my grandmother's farm in Colchester County, the edge of the woods were carpeted with these colonial flowers. Their white petals are strongly striped with pinkish nectar-guides. I was told that their tubers are edible. I rarely tried them as the plants are only found in the richest mixed broad-leaved forests, a diminishing habitat in Nova Scotia in favour of development.

I am not ashamed to admit that from my earliest days, dandelions have held a special place in my heart. We now accept that they provide early food for foraging bees and other pollinators. If we don't feed the pollinators our food crops and ornamentals are also at risk. Dandelions are hardy, braving the cool nights and mornings. Their sunny yellow faces, mimic the sunshine. Collected before flowering, the leaves once boiled and reboiled are a healthy green side-dish. The bitterness is not to everyone's liking anymore than the deep taproots are to the gardener.

As an adult I discovered other favourite wildflowers, mostly encountered on the annual pilgrimage to Cape Split, Kings Co.: Dutchman's-breeches, Purple Trilliums and Trout Lilies.  My heart smiles a little to rediscover these old and familiar friends.

Tell us a story about your favourite springwildflower. Join us on Tuesday May 19 from 11:00-12:00 on Twitter and share your stories.
Johnny-jump-ups, Viola tricolor, photo by Martin Thomas
Spring-beauty, Claytonia virginiana, photo by Peter Neily


Purple Trillium, Trillium erectum, photo by Ross Hall

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