Saturday, March 7, 2009

The Chickweed Lawn (old unpublished post)

Apparently I wrote this in February or March and forgot to hit "publish". . .


My yard is all chickweed!

Its a double edge sword to have a yard full of chickweed. I have all the delicious salad I could ever consume. The downside is that I don't want to pull any out, so I'm having trouble clearing my vegetable beds. I had a small patch of chickweed at my house in Goshen that grew low to the ground under the hose nozzle. The leaves were small and the flowers were even smaller. My chickweed lawn however grows calf high with leaves as long as my pinky. I would say that my current favorite thing about living in California is chickweed.




Chickweed is one of my favorite herbs, lucky for me it grows everywhere. Last winter it grew in the cracks of my rotting back stair case. Chickweed is a powerhouse of nutrition and a wonderful aid when dealing with inflammation and infection. Susun Weed highlights it as one of the 5 main herbs in Healing Wise, an excelent resourse for anyone who has a body.

I have made only one liter of chickweed tincture available for use in 6 weeks. I am thinking about making some more, unfortunately that would require me to buy 100 proof vodka.

Here is a super close up of a chickweed flower- they are very small and quite lovely:



A modest harvest: