http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-healing-weeds-in-your-yard.html
The Healing Weeds in Your Yard
By the Care2 Staff, with thanks to Wise Woman Herbalist Susun Weed.
Many of the lawn-and-garden weeds that people kill with toxic herbicides actually contain health-giving properties and vital nutrients often missing from foods grown in depleted soil.
A weedy lawn is often a goldmine of healing and health! Find out what four of the most common weeds growing in your yard may offer you:
Chickweed: Rich in nutrients, chickweed makes a great addition to the salad bowl, nourishing to the lymph and glandular systems, and offering healing for those with cysts, fevers, and inflammations. A good neutralizer for those with over-acid systems, and beneficial for those with yeast overgrowth and fatty deposits.
Dandelion: All parts, from root to flower, are beneficial. Good for the liver, urinary tract, and female reproductive system, dandelion has cancer- and virus-fighting properties, and is a great beautifier. Dandelion is also beneficial for insomnia, arthritis, hypoglycemia and diabetes. Sap from a cut stem may be used to treat blemishes, corns, stings, warts and other skin problems.
Nettle: Yes, they can sting you but if you gather them carefully and tincture or cook them, nettles are a fabulous source of calcium–a must to prevent osteoporosis–and a great ally for regrowing thinning hair. They are a tonic for the kidneys and adrenals (if you’ve been stressed or fatigued, nettle is the ally for you) and for the respiratory system, offering healing for asthmatics and those with other bronchial and lung complaints.
Red Clover: Herbalist Susun Weed says red clover offers menopausal women many of the benefits of soy without any of the drawbacks. It is one ingredient of traditional spring tonics to purify and revitalize the entire system, high in calcium and compounds that are useful in treating bronchitis and other respiratory conditions.
CAUTION: Before you eat your weeds, be sure that you’ve picked them in an area free of animal waste, pollution from motor vehicles, and chemical herbicide or pesticide treatments.
Please consult a health professional before treating health conditions with herbs. We are not recommending that you discontinue conventional medical practices.
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64 comments
add your comment »Sorry to add my grain of salt yet again!
I was looking for the translation of chickweed into Japanese (because this is where I live) and found out that in Japan it is picked and roasted, then mixed with salt and ground to be used as a toothpaste. Something to try definitely.
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PS: If you want tender dandelion leaves all year round, a good and easy way is to cover them with cut grass/weeds (since you don't use herbicides if you're reading this article) and they grow very tender and almost white in color and are great in salads.
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I think it's actually the seeds of red clover, which look like small beans, which contain the phytoestrogens used in menopausal medicines such as Promensis. I wonder how easy it would be to collect them yourself! They seem pretty small.
Nettle tea is a good blood cleanser.
Thanks for a useful article.
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To Valerie N.
I live in Las Vegas and with some dendiline that I planted we have one grea salad in the spring. I do not know where you live but you can plant some of the dendiline and have a feast in the spring making the fresh salad
plant some seeds. but the first year do not arvest any letthem have a grest roots sistem
when you harvest then for fresh salad just pick then in the spring when they are fresh and sweet
Vito Las Vegas
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A perfect addition to this neat and informative article would have been pictures of the weeds involved.. However, thanks to the readers for the book references..
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Glad to see this article. And thanks to Beth H. for the suggestion of the book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus". My family thought I was crazy when I told them a couple of years back that Dandelions were completely safe to eat including the flower. Which makes a great tea. I put the leaves in my salads. My yard is a haven for weeds. It grows every seed and spore that comes it's way. I would love to know how many more I can surprize my family with.
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Thank You SO much!! for great ideas and book suggestions...
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I'm interested in using dandelion and nettle. How do I prepare them for ingestion?
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week later Babushka marched him down to the farm. His eye was healing, much to the amazement of Papa and Doc Frank. She used the travellers clover to make a poultice which was continually applied as hot as he could stand it and the tincture from the cooking water was used to clean his forced open eye. It was a miracle. Thought you might like to know that to Lisa. Thank-you for bringing back a wonderful memory. Babuska couldn't speak english but as Bogdon translated, he was told he had to apologize to Papa for creating such worry for him and fear of the liability. Babushka told Papa Gods gift gave two healing that day...Bogdon's eye and Papa's heart... with an added miracle...Bogdon now learned to LISTEN when he was told to QUIT running around like a Banchee.
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This was a very neat article..Thank-you. And I can add for the travellers clover+++ It is also a medicinal item. When I was a child (LONG time ago..Ha) We had a polish family come stay at a house down the road. Every summer it was very exciting because the Micotz family was on a mission to bring as many from the old country as possible or friends. Anyway this one summer we had kids our age come and we so enjoyed having the friendships. Roman and his sister and cousins waited for another family...Babushka(grandma) and Bogdon that was Romans age. Bogdon had never seen a cow...it was so cool...another whole story but anyway in just a few weeks the whole lot of the kids and my sister and I were all putting up hay and doing the general summer jobs required on a farm. Of course the tedium and hard work provided many hours of tom fgoolery, fun and joking around. On one particular day, we were running around the hay wagons, playing tag. Bogdon was NOT going to be caught and still afraid of the cows in a way...he also wasn't going to be cught on the side of the hay wagon where they happened to be grazing. He made a dive to get under the wagon and SMACK...he hit an iron post stabilizer under the wagaon...right in the eye. Papa rushed him to the Doctors and Doc Frank did what he could but said Bogdon would probably loose his eye. Once Babuska learned what the Doctor said, she just kept shaking her head and said no...they would not take his eye. Papa was sick but one week l
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