Crops which grow like weeds

[macmex]

Have you ever struggled to grow a garden, watching your favorite crops succumb to disease and insects, and wished that your food crops would grow like the Bermuda grass which thrives in spite of your greatest efforts to eradicate it? Well, there are some things which are GOOD to eat and do grow like weeds! Learn to grow and utilize them, and you'll be both happier and healthier for it! I've been working on a handout on this. Finally, just decided to start posting parts of it. Feel free to chip in with your favorite candidates for this kind of crop.

Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium Album):



When I first started my Oklahoma garden I did something I had never done before. I staked out the entire area I intended to cultivate, and then, over a couple of years, I worked on getting it under cultivation. One of the first things I did was to collect bags of leaves and grass clippings which I found along the curb and spread them as mulch in my “garden.” This helped to combat the grass and weeds which were already on site in my garden. The first year I did this some things came up from my “imported mulch.” I spotted one little plant of lambs quarters which volunteered in that first year garden. I left that little plant, as I knew from experience, that it was a tasty vegetable. Before frost, that year, that one plant grew to over 6' in height and was covered in seeds. I cut it down in the fall and shook the dried plant, with its seeds, as I dragged it out of the garden. The next spring I had thousands of little lambs quarters plants and our family feasted on those greens. In fact, it's been over seven years since I found that first volunteer. Every year we rejoice when more sprout in the garden. We cut, blanche and freeze pounds of lambs quarters. Because of this it is one of our family's favorite vegetables, even in the dead of winter.
If you would like a delicious, completely dependable vegetable, you might want to try lambs quarters. There are a couple ways to obtain this plant. First off, it is entirely possible to find plants in another person's garden. One simply needs to know what the plant looks like. It is actually quite common and considered a weed. It might, in fact, make an unbidden appearance in your garden! Another way to obtain this plant, is to purchase seed from a seed company. There are a number of seed companies which carry the seed, and I understand that there are a number of varieties available. Some are better eating than others. The common variety, found as a weed in much of the United States, is very good eating.
If you find a small lambs quarter plant or plants, simply transplant it into your garden and let it go to seed in late summer. The seed can be harvested by waiting until it dries on the plant and then shaking and rubbing it into a sack. It can be stored in a jar or envelop and planted in the spring. To plant lambs quarter seed: clear and cultivate a patch in the garden and scatter the seed on top of the ground about a month before the last frost date. Don’t worry if it doesn’t sprout right away. When nights warm up enough, it will sprout. I don’t thin the seedlings. One can begin harvesting once the tops are large enough to be trimmed. The very best cutting is the first, when both leaves and stems are tender. It’s a snap to fill a colander with enough to feed a family. If you want lambs quarters to naturally sprout in your garden, just don’t rototill much. The fallen seed will sprout in the spring.
Though I have not tried this, I have heard that lambs quarters can be dried and used in soups and stews. Our family’s favorite way to utilize lambs quarters as a boiled green. We serve it much like spinach, with a sprinkle of soy sauce, and we never tire of it. We have also used it as an ingredient in soup or stews. To preserve for winter:

1) we rinse and clean the leaves and tender stems
2) drop them into boiling water for two minutes
3) move them into a colander, in the sink, to drain while we run cold water over them
4) drop them into ice water to finish cooling and stop any damage to enzymes
5) drain in the colander
6) label and bag in freezer bags
7) freeze for later use.

[cole]

They may not grow like weeds but these varieties do well in NEOK for me...
Beans - KY Wonder - pole, Provider, Contender, Santa Anna - pole, Fowler, Romano
Fava Beans - Broad Windsor
Beets - Detroit Red
Broccoli - Di Cicco, Green Sprouting
Cabbage - Golden Acre, Early Jersey Wakefield, Copenhagen Market
Carrots (only with sandy deep soil) Scarlet Nantes
Cauliflower - Snowball
Collards - Georgia
So. Peas - Pink-eye Purple Hull
Cucumbers - Marketmore, Suyo Long, Lemon, West Indian Gherkin
Eggplant - Black Beauty, Green Apple, Ping Tung Long
Garlic - Elephant, Music, California Early
Gourds - Luffa, Birdhouse, Dipper
Greens - Mizuna, Arugula, Greenwave, Tendergreen, Giant Red, Pac Choi, Tatsoi
Kale - Tuscano, Vates, Red Russian
Lettuce - Red Sails, Red and Green Salad Bowl, Green Oakleaf, Freckles, Buttercrunch
Melons - Sugar Baby
Okra - Heavy Hitter, Clemson Spineless
Onions - Red Creole, Evergreen Bunching
Peas - Wando, Sugar Anne, Sugar Snap, Dwarf Gray
Peppers - King of the North, Cayenne, Early Jalapeno, Habanero, Anaheim
Potatoes - Kennebec, Red Pontiac
Radish - Sparkler, French Breakfast, German Giant
Spinach - Bloomsdale Longstanding
Zucchini - Dark Green
Pumpkin - Small Sugar
Swiss Chard - any
Sweet Potatoes - Georgia Jet
Tomato - Pruden's Purple, Arkansas Traveler
Turnip - Purple Top

[duckcreekfarms]

Sweetpotatoes certainly grow like weeds

[macmex]

Bon,
    I'd be highly surprised if you don't have enough lambs quarters for next year. They produce a ton of seed. The first year I found lambs quarters in my Oklahoma garden, it was just one plant. That one plant produced enough seed for all my use in the coming year. It, too, grew to five feet. I try to remember to harvest some seed in order to share with others. But I've never had to replant.

George

[glen]

George, I don't know all the good weeds to eat where I live but I did stumble on Malabar spinach. I started out with a very small cutting and now have a big patch of this stuff. It climbs all over the place. You just cut the leaves and use it like any Green. You can also eat the sweet potato greens and they are actually pretty good. I read that they are more nutricious than the sweet potato's themselves. You can also eat okra greens if you want. Never tried it but I have read online that they are pretty good.

[macmex]

Glen, how do you prepare the sweet potato greens? For years I've had it in my mind to look that up "sometime." Duck Creek Farms actually lists a variety of sweet potato which is special for greens. But I bet other varieties would work.

[glen]

I am not an expert at greens. I just eat em. They are a survival veggy. We don't need em in the US so we don't use em. In my climate we have no greens so they come in Handy sometimes. Pick the Young leaves. If you want, pick the stems. Cut them up if you want and steam them with a Little salt. Stir fry them with you other veggy's. Cut them small and mix them with scrambled eggs. Use them in your Green salad. They taste kind of neutral, nothing to them. But, if you google the nutricional benefits of the leaves you will see that there is a lot to them. They even have some protein in them. In an emergency situation you would not want to waste a single leaf. Oh, throw them in a soup or stew also. I prefer malabar spinach myself but I like the batata leaves a lot as well. Try em. Oh, I have also read that you can eat the leaves of the okra but have not tried it. There are so many greens that we can eat.

[duckcreekfarms]

All sweetpotato varieties have edible leaves, and I like them..... but I think some taste better than others, also the ones most preferred are the ones that are bunchier growth habit. I think the Cordner's Red would make excellent greens, but haven't tried them.

I grew a row of Malibar spinach this year, mostly to get a seed crop as I sell transplants at the farmers market and was out of seed.... I didn't eat them cooked, but really didn't like them raw, kind of a slimy texture. But they certainly grow like weeks here in Oklahoma with the summer heat......

[glen]

Malabar spinach is not a Green that I eat in salads. It does have that sticky issue. However, it is great to add in soups or stews and definitely in scrambled eggs. It is not for everyone. Depending on where you live, you might have much better options. In the tropics, we don't have a lot of options. Your point, that malabar spinach grows well in the summer is its strong point. Super easy to grow. No fuss. And, what other Green grows so well in 90 degree heat and humidity? I would love to have real spinach for example.