silverguide.site –

Did you know that free food grows in our gardens, streets and parks without being planted by us? Not only does this food hide in plain sight, we’re encouraged to remove it from our gardens and throw it away. I’m talking about edible weeds, otherwise known as wildflowers. You may not be able to eat weeds into submission, but using them in the kitchen is a good excuse to welcome them into the garden.

We walk past edible weeds without a second thought, yet they’re nutritious and available for much of the year. They return of their own accord every year, either perennially or by seed, making it easy to familiarise yourself with them and learn how to cook.

A number of plants on this list are leafy greens that can be eaten in salad or cooked like spinach. This may feel repetitive (not another spinach substitute!) but is useful when gathering food in or around your garden because you can combine them. This helps if there is a limited quantity of one type, and increases the variety of flavour and nutrients in your diet.

As with any foraging, only pick and eat plants if you are 100% sure of their identity. Avoid those that have been sprayed with pesticides (don’t pick from busy streets – delve deeper into verges, woodland and from gardens you trust) or close to busy roads, where they can absorb pollution.

Plantain (Plantago lanceolata and P. major)

These common grassland perennials can be found in lawns, mini-meadows and verges – all over in fact. P. lanceolata, with long narrow leaves, has edible flowerheads best picked while still in bud that taste remarkably like mushrooms. Add them raw to salads or cook in stir-fries for the mushroom flavour. P. major has wide leaves and it’s the young tender leaves that are eaten as a salad or cooked.

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata)

A biennial, garlic mustard, or Jack-by-the-hedge, grows a rosette of kidney-shaped leaves with serrated edges in the first year. In the second, it fires up a vertical stem with heart-shaped leaves and four-petalled white flowers. All of the plant is edible and young leaves make an excellent salad leaf that really does taste of garlic and mustard. Older leaves are best cooked, as they can be tougher.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Dandelion leaves fried lightly make an excellent and nutritious side dish. If you find them too bitter, try boiling them for a few minutes beforehand. As is the case with so many forage plants, it helps if you pick the youngest leaves. Flowerheads can be eaten – I enjoy snipping them on to a salad as a colourful garnish. They can also be fried in a light batter for a sweet starter, but snip off most of the bitter green flower base first.

Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria)

One of the more vigorous perennial weeds, ground elder is thought to have been introduced to the UK by the Romans for its nutritional value. The leaves and shoots are edible and I particularly like the mild celery flavour of young leaves as a salad base. Older leaves can be boiled or fried like spinach. It’s not a plant I would intentionally add to a garden as it spreads vigorously and is notoriously hard to eradicate, but many gardens have a patch, or you may find one nearby. A variety of wildflowers in the same family look similar and some are poisonous, including the deadly hemlock, so correct identification is essential (their flowers are almost identical, so check the leaves carefully). Ground elder has pure green stems and grows in a short, spreading carpet.

Fat hen (Chenopodium album)

Another great leafy green that can be used in salads when the leaves are young and succulent or cooked as a side dish or addition to main courses. Fat hen, or lamb’s quarters, is an annual plant that will return each year by self-sowing. As with most plants on this list, once established your garden will have some for ever more. Its leaves are a dusty olive green and triangular in shape with toothed edges.

Cleavers (Galium aparine)

Sticky weed is an easily identified annual, best picked early in the season when tender, before it turns stringy and forms bristly fruits that stick to clothes. Boil the young stems and leaves for 5-10 minutes as you would spinach. This softens the Velcro-like bristles for a pleasant dish that tastes a little like peas. You can also add a small handful of raw leaves to a jug of water kept in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. The water will have a light cucumber flavour – refreshing on a hot, sunny day.

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)

A common grassland species, sorrel is a perennial wildflower with delicate inconspicuous flowers on vertical spikes that turn red as they produce seeds while glowing in sunlight. Its small oval-to-arrowhead-shaped leaves have a fresh lemony tang from the presence of oxalic acid, which can cause sore throats if eaten raw. Offset this by chopping with other salad leaves to dilute them or by cooking for a short time as you would spinach. Sorrel makes a lovely fresh pesto and, surprisingly, a delicious sorrel sorbet. Due to the oxalic acid content sorrel should only be eaten in moderation.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)

Stinging nettles are tricky in a garden because they spread vigorously and cause painful stings, especially on summer-bare ankles. Yet they are an incredible food source for many insect larvae and useful in the kitchen too. Wearing thick protective gloves, pick the fresh young shoots and leaves in spring. Steam, fry or boil for a few minutes to wilt and deactivate the stings for a highly nutritious side. Nettles are famously good as a soup base with some extra flavours from stocks and herbs.

Bramble (Rubus fruticosus)

Brambles are thorny, rambling perennials that crop up in hedgerows and woodland, spreading by seed and stem tips that root when they touch the ground. These tough, almost indestructible plants produce delicious blackberries from late-summer into autumn. Blackberries are easy to recognise and at optimal ripeness are exceptionally sweet, perfect for dessert. To contain their spread, either grow and clip as part of a mixed edible hedge (with the likes of hazelnut, guelder rose and elderflower), or remove old stems at the base when they finish fruiting, retaining a few new stems to fruit next year.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

A tiny weed of sunny spots, chickweed is an annual that returns by dropping seeds. Treat it like a cut-and-come-again salad crop, snipping clumps off. It makes an excellent raw salad base that is rich in vitamin C. You can use it in sandwiches as you would cress, make a pesto or add it to cooked dishes as a spinach substitute. Chickweed has oval leaves, flowers with five split petals, is sprawling and has a line of hair down its stem that switches sides between leaf nodes.

Grower Gatherer: Edible perennials to grow and gather in your garden by Jack Wallington is published by Bloomsbury on 3 September (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com