Wild Carrot

Queen Anne’s lace is one of my favorite wildflowers. If some happens to land in my flower garden (and it usually does), I encourage it to grow.

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Here’s some Queen Anne’s lace growing happily among the bee balm flowers in my garden last summer .

This plant is also known as wild carrot and it’s pretty closely related to the carrots we grow in our gardens. At this time of year, it’s just a cluster of feathery green leaves growing close to the ground, with a long white root buried in the soil. I removed a bunch of them from the rhubarb patch the other day (that’s not a place I want them to grow) and ended up with a good handful of wild carrots.

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So I decided to eat them.

I washed and scraped them, then cut them in half and removed the woody core. It came out pretty easily.

 

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I steamed them for a few minutes and ate them with butter and salt.

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They tasted carroty, but not sweet like garden carrots. Not bad if you’re hungry, but I’d have to say that I enjoy the beauty of the flower a good deal more than the taste of the root.

 

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First Wild Harvest of Spring

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Weed or gourmet treat? I’ve seen dandelion greens in the produce section of grocery stores. I’ve even seen packets of dandelion seeds for sale in garden stores.

Why bother when you can let Mother Nature do the work?

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My yard is full of them. I just dig them up with a trowel. They add a nice tang to a salad of mixed greens and grated carrot.

The other day, I sautéed some of the greens with garlic and onion. They came out a bit too bitter for my taste. Next time I’ll try mixing them with potatoes or rice.

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The roots are edible, too, though I haven’t tried doing anything with them yet. That’s on my to-do list.

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