2017 to me was the year of the plant. Working with my network and connections I was able to bring in more wild-harvested product by weight than any restaurant I know of. One week in the Spring I remember I clocked us going through 50lbs of nettles alone.
The hardest plants to get my hands on as far as purchasing were salad greens or those that taste good raw. I wanted to show people how special salads made from wild plants could be. That’s easier said than done though, and convincing farmers to grow weeds is, difficult. If I wanted to do it, I quickly learned I was going to have to pick them myself.
Enter Galinsoga parviflora, also known as the gallant soldier. It’s a member of the Aster or sunflower family, and what was to be the hardest working green I’d met so far.
Small yellow flowers with 5 petals, a reminder to me of their sunflower relation. Even the young tips of these older plants will do fine in a salad.
My girlfriend’s mother had mentioned our mutual friend Kenton from ReWild University telling her a plant called “quickweed” or “Frenchweed” was edible a number of years ago. I’d stashed the info to memory, bogged down figuring out what to do with so much lamb’s quarter that year.
The young growing tips, how I prefer Galinsoga cleaned for serving.
Lamb’s quarter and amaranth are good in salads too, but after I saw how aggressively the Galinsoga grew this year, I remembered to try it, and there’s plenty of reasons it rose to the top of the heap of what I picked for salads:
- Just a couple minutes and snips of a scissors will fill a garbage bag, just grab a bunch, cut and repeat.
- The growing season was long. Even after it’s gone to flower, the tips of young growth were still tender and good tossed with other greens.
- As gardeners know, it’s an aggressive grower. I picked as much as I could stand about twice a week and never ran out, all from a roughly 40′ x 10′ plot. The more I picked, the more it grew.
- It can be used raw (in moderation and mixed with other greens) or cooked. Got a call from a farmer that the spinach was killed by hail? Don’t worry, just toss some Galinsoga in that pasta. While you’re at it, put it in the salad mix and on the fish entree, then throw the purchased microgreens in the compost where they belong, as fodder to grow interesting, edible weeds.
- Like so many other greens sans watercress, It’s shelf life shames conventionally harvested salad greens. I would regularly get two weeks of shelf life from what I picked, or more, if it lasted that long, packed in plastic fishboxes with a damp towel or two.
- It’s tastes is mild and fades into the background, there’s not even a hint of bitterness. It’s a blank canvass for whatever you like. This also means from a health/diet perspective you can consume mass quantities cooked, unlike other aggressive growers like garlic mustard, whose bitterness I tend to blend with other plants.
- It’s pretty clean, and requires little processing. The galinsoga I was picking grew high, quickly, out of the way from dirt sloshing around from rain, a lot different compared to something that hugs the ground, like equally tasty purslane.
With the crushing stress of restaurant work only getting worse throughout the year, I started to chuckle at myself when I would bring in the greens and decide what to compose for the salad blend that day. A lot of times the Galinsoga might be as much as 30% or so of the blend, with the rest being purslane, amaranth tips, waterleaf, watercress, lamb’s quarters, chickweed, wildflowers or whatever else I could get my hands on. Like I said, it worked hard for me.
There is one thing to mention about eating it raw though, it’s a little furry. Out of the hundreds of people that ate the salad, I did have two people not like it, specifically because they said it was hairy. I always kept another, tender leaved salad on too, just in case I had to make a different one for someone. But, if I went to a restaurant and ordered something called “foraged greens”, I would definitely expect it to be different. Needless to say, the fuzziness is part of why I wouldn’t serve salads of 100% galinsoga, and when I do it’s in small pieces. If people say you shouldn’t serve salads of it raw, try it for yourself, it tastes a lot different after it’s been blended with other greens, dressed with your favorite oil and vinegar.
The gallant soldier was true to it’s name, and I wouldn’t have been able to supply an entire restaurant with hand picked salad through an entire growing season without it. That being said, I’ll never plant it in a garden of mine after I saw how quickly it mobbed rows of corn and smothered entire patches of pumpkins and squash. It is, like other aggressive “weeds”, dangerously delicious when it’s near garden plants.
Galinsoga quickly smothers other nearby plants, like these squash straining for light.
Wow! What a performer! I’m going to try it in a sheet mulched patch away from the fenced garden. I wonder if the deer will like it…
Couldn’t speak to the deer consumption, but, yeah I definitely got a lot out of a small patch of the stuff, it is very aggressive.
All the more reason to try it up
here in BC… could make for even more delicios venison! Share and share alike!
I’d be careful about planting it. It’s aggressive because the seeds are prolific and mature quickly. The plant is capable of growing several generations a year. Once your soil has those seeds in it, you’ll never get rid of it. On a positive note though it’s very easy to pull out!
Thank you for that caution. The spot that I’m thinking of is a clearing away from my lavender fields and veggie garden, and ringed by second-growth cedar and alder … I was looking for something to go with the nettles, melissa and other herbs that I use but don’t necessarily want in my veggie patch. Again, thanks!
Yeah it’s a weird one. I believe iit’srs a slightly different species than in the UK but gallant soldier is also the common name for that one, same taste in my experience but nobody else in the UK seems to use it. Was pleased to see more people this side of the pond utilising it. It may be because it seems more virulent and abundant here, whereas its only a minor arable weed in the UK
Yes, virulent is definitely a term I would use.
I know this plant as “potato weed”. The name is likely derived from the shape of the leaves and the similarity of the flowers to the flowers of certain potato varieties.
Another name I haven’t heard of for it. Fascinating how many common names there are for things and how they come about.
In Columbia it is called “guascas” and it is a key ingredient to make a chicken, potato and corn soup called “ajiaco”. I think it has an interesting and unusual flavor when cooked. I would love to have some more recipes that feature its concentrated cooked flavor as it is so abundant.
So far I found Franzosenkraut (German for frenchweed) only once. I wish I had an abundant spot as the one in your picture, to get Franzosenkraut from. I had to do with a handfull of plants … and I very much liked the taste of the raw plant.
Hi Peggy, thanks for sharing, I really find it interesting how many people and traditions around the world have been using this plant. Are there any traditional German ways of using the franzosenkraut that you like? Just raw in a salad?
I love the taste of Galinsoga but so do the deer, they wipe mine out. At least it keeps them away from my other plants.
Don’t plant it you’ll be so sorry. I have this weed it has been my mortal garden enemy for years. I was excited when I found out it was edible and yes I put it in everything and have tried freezing for winter smoothies. I have 2 gardens and because of this plant I only use one as we till till till and put down tons of preen on the unused garden and yet that garden is still a very gallant soldier.
Good advice, I wouldn’t plant it either, but it’s nice to eat after you weed.
The more you till, and in so doing disturb the soil, the more it will grow. It likes disturbance. Perhaps some no-till gardening will slow it down. It has disappeared from my old garden plot where I don’t till. My neighbour has her garden tilled ever year, and it grows like crazy there. Plenty for me to forage.
Oh god are you right. It has taken over great swaths of garden at the farm I live on part time.
I would like to know what it tastes like. My daughter has a friend from Bogota and I want to fix Ajiaco for him. Is there an herb that is close to the flavor? Lemon balm?
Parsley.
I named it Devil weed before I knew what it was. I use it in smoothies, salads and most dishes. I freeze it for winter smoothies and would only give an enemy the seeds. Just this morning I was laying fabric from plant to plant in my veggie garden to limit the weeding. You could weed all day, all summer and never get rid of it. I say if you can’t beat it eat it!