Whenever I think of my great grandmother Sturgis, I think of pickles. Now, she died when I was just a young child, so I’m certain my memory of her is wildly inaccurate, so I offer my sincere apologies to anyone who knew her. What I remember about her is hundreds and hundreds of jars of pickles—way more than an elderly married couple ever needed or could possibly consume. I remember a basement lined with shelves laden with dusty jars of all types of pickle–chunks, bread and butter slices, whole sweet pickles, dill spears… I imagine her an avid gardener who just couldn’t bring herself to rip out those cucumber plants once she’d put up enough pickles for the year. I know the temptation. The cucumbers are there. Pickles are good. You wouldn’t want those cucumbers to go to waste, would you? Pretty soon, the pantry shelves are groaning under the weight of pickle jars, you’re buying vinegar by the case, and you’re sending every guest home with a selection of half a dozen types of pickle. Before you know it, you’re known as “The Pickle Lady”. Neighbourhood children sneak around the house, daring each other to peek through the windows for a glimpse of the reinforced steel shelving stacked with pickles. Guests feign cucumber allergies. Family members drop hints about obsessive compulsive disorders their “friends” have. Your husband threatens to move out unless you remove the stacks of pickle jars from the bedroom.

This is why I only plant pickling cucumbers every other year. I can easily make two years’ supply of pickles with one planting (and still have cucumbers left over for the neighbours who like to make their own pickles). And it reduces the risk of becoming The Pickle Lady.

Of course, other vegetables can be pickled…

Weeds. Gardeners hate them.

But weeds are just plants. And the weeds in my garden here in New Zealand are almost identical to the weeds I had in my garden in Pennsylvania, and the one in Minnesota, and even my garden in Panama.

So what are these weeds? They’re the plants that European colonists couldn’t do without. Food, medicine, pest control—it’s all there in those common garden weeds. Back when my husband and I lived and worked at residential camps and couldn’t have a garden, we used to forage for weeds to supplement the nutritionally suspect camp food we were served. Dandelions were one of our favourite early spring salad greens. Picked at the right time (before the flowers emerge), they are nutty and pleasantly bitter.

I took a walk around my garden today, and found the makings of a lovely meal among the weeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So next time you pull out a handful of weeds, remember—if you can’t beat ‘em, just eat ‘em!