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On Tuesday I graduated, finally, from the U. of I. Extension’s master gardener program<\/a>. This is noteworthy not because I consider myself suddenly qualified to dispense any sort of horticultural advice — despite the certificate and spiffy new name tag I am still shocked and amazed whenever anything grows, anywhere. But I am a bit proud, as it took me twice as long to get through the program than any normal person. I did the MG coursework in the winter of 2007 but because I decided to run away to Wisconsin last summer I did not complete the required 60 hours of volunteer work — usually wrapped up within a year — until last month.<\/p>\n Efficiency: It’s overrated.<\/p>\n Anyway. I mention this because one of the earliest teaching moments in the MG class is the moment when the person teaching weed managment asks the class to define a weed.<\/p>\n The correct answer (and I paraphrase): “A weed is a plant growing where you want another plant to grow.”<\/p>\n A weed’s identity is inextricably bound up with its context, in other words. There is no essential weediness to its nature.\u00a0I thought of this yesterday as I prepared to chow down on a big plate of stinging\u00a0nettles<\/a>.<\/p>\n The nettles came from Vera<\/a>‘s first delivery last week, along with green garlic, more chard, tender asparagus, and some pungent lemon balm. But while I enjoyed her delicate chicken and nettle soup<\/a> earlier this year, my direct experience with nettles is limited to several unfortunate childhood mishaps that left me coated in calamine lotion for days.<\/p>\n Safe to say I was a little leery. But in the context of my kitchen they seemed harmless enough, so I pulled on some gloves and set to work. I washed and (sortof) de-stemmed the greens, then steamed them to neutralize the toxic needles. While they were wilting I sauteed the rest of the mushrooms with some green garlic and pine nuts, then tossed it all together with some more dry ricotta.\u00a0<\/p>\n For my first foray into the world of otherwise fear-and-rash-inducing plants, not bad! Spicy and surprisingly filling, though next time I would do a more thorough job of picking out the stems. They were a little woody.<\/p>\n After lunch, I sat back down at the computer and almost immediately stumbled onto, whattaya know, an article in the Wall Street Journal on the growing popularity of weedy greens. [\u00a0It’s Salad Days for Weeds<\/a>.]<\/p>\n I felt very au courant.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you’re interested in learning more about the uses and applications of weeds, Nance is offering three classes over the next month on “Weeds as Foods and Medicines;” the first one, on “pickles, pates, dips, spreads, and sprinkles,” is this weekend. The next two cover herbal skin care (6\/13) and tinctures (6\/20). See her site<\/a> for more on all three.<\/p>\n Also, while we’re on the subject of weeds, I’ll just plug, again<\/a>, some good advice<\/a> on the subject of surviving, and maybe even thriving, in an environment hostile to your species.<\/p>\n “Weeds are really good at hiding in the open. Their secrets are kept close in their invisibility. Their numbers are always spreading.<\/p>\n “Be a weed: Thrive no matter where you are. Make your own food and oxygen. Make soils better for the next inhabitants. Send out a gazillion seeds. Reincarnate frequently in unexpected places.”<\/p>\n And if sometimes you can’t quite be<\/em> the weed, you might as well at least eat them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Tuesday I graduated, finally, from the U. of I. Extension’s master gardener program. This is noteworthy not because I consider myself suddenly qualified to dispense any sort of horticultural advice — despite the certificate and spiffy new name tag I am still shocked and amazed whenever anything grows, anywhere. But I am a bit … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,42],"tags":[149,45,147,148],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-food-media","category-urban-agriculture","tag-living-kitchen","tag-nance-klehm","tag-nettles","tag-weeds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":537,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"img_1145\"](\"https:\/\/www.marthabayne.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/img_1145-400x300.jpg\" "\\"img_1145\\"")
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