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Page
2 of each issue features a captioned slide show on how to harvest and prepare
the featured weed, and further information on how to identify the plant. Botanical,
historical, and medicinal information, recipes, and links can be found on Page
3.
Slide
Show
Harvesting
and Preparing Hawksbeard |
| Tools
Required: Just your hands, or a paring knife.
Total field harvesting time: about 5 minutes will net you
about a cup of hand-picked leaves. With a paring knife, about 3 cups.
Total home
preparation time: about 5 minutes per cup, because each leaf must be washed.
Yield:
leaves, buds, flowers, root.
Flavor:
Bitter, like chicory or endive but not as strong.
Harvesting
Tips: If you follow the flower stalk down to the base of the rosette then
grab the root ball you can pluck up the whole plant. Or, use your paring knife
to cut the rosette off just above the root and the plant will produce more leaves.
Freezes well for use in cooked dishes (blanch first for 1 minute in simmering
water to kill any residual germs).
Serving Suggestions :
Add washed leaves, buds and flowers raw to salads. Use young leaves as you would
lettuce. Brew leaves and root for a nice detox tea. Harvest, wash, blanch and
freeze in 1 cup portions for later use in soups and stews.
Notes:
Available for a long growing season, and plentiful in temperate zones.
Nutritional
properties: High in chlorophyl, fiber, vitamin C.
Medicinal properties:
Antidote for snakebite; Antitussive (relieves cough); Febrifuge (reduces fever).
Go to Page 3 to learn more.
Asiatic
false Hawksbeard Identification
Leaves
Leaves
range in size from 3" to 6", are slightly hairy, with toothed leaf margins
which vary somewhat in shape.
It's
easy to confuse Hawksbeard with Sow Thistle when Sow Thistle is small. They both
start from a rosette and the bud clusters look similar. But Sow Thistle leaves
grow more upright, and have pointy spines on the leaf margins. Leaves also grow
up the stalk at intervals, while Hawksbeard leaves are spineless and flower stalks
are mostly leafless. Both are choice edibles.
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With
such a shallow root, it's
easy to pull up the whole plant. But, if you cut or pinch off the larger leaves,
the smaller ones will have a chance to grow. Also, if the root remains in the
ground, more leaves will sprout this year and next year too.
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Shallow
roots allow the plant to thrive in any little sidewalk crack.
Also,
some might confuse Hawksbeard with Dandelion. Their growth patterns are similar,
but unlike hawksbeard, dandelion leaf margins are sharply pointed backwards, the
much larger yellow flowers are born only one per stem, the stem is thicker and
softer material, and the puff ball is a well developed sphere.
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| Hawksbeard's
"signature": - Shallow
roots
- Hollow
flower stams.
- Grows
in a rosette pattern, all leaves are attached to the root and lie fairly low to
the ground.
- Leaves
are slightly hairy, margins toothed.
- Flavor
is slightly bitter.
- Flower
spike comes up from the center of the rosette, with multiple buds at the top.
This has an unmistakably scraggly appearance.
- Small,
yellow daisy like flowers open, and shortly turn to hairy white puff balls.
- Biannual,
spreads from seeds.
- Grows
in yards, fields, open places throughout the world's temperate regions
Click
on the picture below for a closer look at Hawksbeard flower stalks.
Many
of the flowers of Asiatic false Hawksbeard don't fully open. Those that do are
tiny yellow petaled things that make a little white puff afterwards, similar to
dandelion or sow thistle. | |
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