Dandelion flowers open like little suns just as the first bees are out, nettle patches feed butterflies, and fleshy purslane creeps across Mediterranean soil as a staple of the famed Cretan diet. These five so-called weeds are edible, medicinal and useful in the garden: stop pulling them up and they pay you back.
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“The war on dandelion is pointless,” declares gardener-columnist Franck Prost at the Jardins en Seine exhibit. “Leave them alone!”, concurs landscaper Jean-Marc Jodogne.
These “lion’s teeth” are indeed a precious aid for bee survival and that of other pollinating insects. It provides an abundance of food at the start of spring. They are also edible for us humans: in salad, jam, sautéed, infusions…
Nothing goes to waste in the dandelion: flower, leaf, and root! For beauty, you can treat yourself to a dandelion bath, pouring a whole plant decoction into the bathing water… It is beneficial for skin and for detoxifying the body.
Before you reach for the hoe, it is worth knowing what each of these five plants actually gives back. The table sums up what you can eat, what the garden gains and what else each weed is good for.
| Weed | Edible use | Benefit in the garden | Other use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dandelion | Flower, leaf and root: salad, jam, sautéed, infusions | Feeds bees and other pollinators at the start of spring | Whole-plant decoction poured into a bath, good for the skin |
| Nettle | Raw, cooked, in juice and for tea; also fed to chickens | A blessing for butterflies and a great compost activator | Nettle manure, and stems for paper and fabric |
| Plantain | Young leaves in salads or sautéed; buds taste of mushrooms | Sow ‘Deer Horn’ if the garden plants are too bitter | Poultice of leaf sap for burns and stings; infusion for chest ailments |
| Clover | Red clover drunk as tea, with trace elements and vitamins | White clover is a first-class green manure and stays ornamental in a lawn | Diuretic and cough suppressant |
| Purslane | In salads or stir-fried, very rich in omega-3 | An interesting ground cover, and happy in a pot | Good for the heart and helps cleanse the body |
Each one earns its place, so the question is less how to remove them than where to let them stay.
Equally valuable for humans and the garden, nettle is really a plant to (re)discover! You can learn to pick it with bare hands and munch on it raw, but you can also cook it in various ways. Nettle is a particularly nutritious wild plant, with high mineral content and energizing. It’s excellent to enjoy raw, cooked, in juice and for tea. It’s also good food for chickens.
In a garden, nettle is a blessing for butterflies. It’s also a great compost activator, a natural fertilizer where it grows spontaneously, and above all, the star ingredient of yet unmatched nettle manure. Just that? Nope: believe it or not, the stem can be used to make paper and fabric!
Your kids might shoot its buds like a little plant-made bow! Did you know that these same floral buds are edible? In early spring, their taste resembles that of mushrooms. This weed’s young leaves can be enjoyed in salads or sautéed.
While all plantains are edible, those in your garden might be too bitter. In that case, sow ‘Deer Horn’ plantain, the tastiest one.
Plantain also has medicinal virtues: as a poultice, the sap of its leaves soothes burns, stings, and other small injuries; in infusion, it treats respiratory ailments.
Its white or red flowers offer a feast for biodiversity: a major source of nutrients for butterfly caterpillars, bees, and bumblebees…
For us, drunk as tea, red clover is a diuretic and a cough suppressant; it contains trace elements and vitamins.
In the garden, white clover is also a first-class green manure… And it remains very ornamental in a lawn!
This creeping plant, common in Mediterranean gardens, turns out to be a staple food of the famed Cretan diet!
Very rich in omega-3, purslane is indeed excellent for the heart and it helps cleanse the body: consume it in salads or stir-fried.
Like clover, it is an interesting ground cover… and even just a pretty plant to grow in a pot! Sow from March to September.
Claire Lelong-Lehoang
