Chickweed

One weed that is rising in popularity is chickweed. It grows virtually everywhere, it’s nutritious, and abundant where it grows. Let’s check out one of my favorite spring greens:

Plant Profile:

Scientific Name: Stellaria media (There are more species, but this is the best and most common)

Preferred Habitat: Lawns, gardens, hillsides, and heavily disturbed land.

Edible Parts: All above-ground parts

Distribution: Nearly the entirety of North America

Harvest Season: Early spring (Late winter in some areas) and again in late fall.

Key Identifiers: Grows in large, tangled mats of greenery that resembles moss from a distance. They have distinct white flowers, and a single line of hairs going down the stem.

Toxic Look-Alikes: Scarlet pimpernel looks quite similar to chickweed, but the two main differences are: scarlet pimpernel doesn’t have a line of hairs going down the stem, and the flowers are red with fewer petals. Chickweed will have distinct white flowers.

Nutrition:

While I can’t find the exact amounts of each nutrient, this is the best I could do with a top scientific journal:

Chickweed contains the following:

• Mucilage

• Triterpene saponins

• Hentiacontanol

• Coumarins

• Phytosterols

• Tocopherols

• Gamma-linoleic acid,

• Minerals (I wish they’d say which ones)

• Flavonoids

• Organic Acids

• High levels of vitamin C

Because of this, chickweed has amazing anti-itching properties as well as anti-inflammatory properties, wound healing, and skin-health properties.

Uses

Chickweed is largely considered nothing, but a nuisance weed (and some farmers need to fight it pretty hard in order to grow other crops) however it is an excellent and underutilized herb.

Chickweed has traditionally been used for:

• Vinegars (to fight off scurvy when vitamin C is scarce

• Salves/balms for the skin

• Fresh in salads (much like a microgreen)

• In soups, sauces, and sandwiches

• Tinctures

• Infused oils

I would consider chickweed a strong hardy herb and treat it much like a wild microgreen for most purposes.

** For all its benefits, I would caution you as with every wild food: Start by consuming small amounts at a time! If your body isn’t used to eating wild foods, it can make your stomach upset when you consume too much. This applies to chickweed in particular as some people can be sensitive to saponins in plants.

Foraging Chickweed

So where do you get chickweed? Well, it grows all over the place. I would start by looking in lawns and grassy meadows but try to avoid places that are regularly treated with sprays and herbicides!

Another note: I have seen other people get chickweed that grows much larger than what I find in my area. I’m not sure exactly why this is, but I would speculate that this has a lot to do with the soil type. Around me it tends to stay pretty small and look like mossy patches almost, but in other areas it can look more like a taller herbaceous plant.

So now the fun part: how do you grow chickweed?

Well, the good news is you really don’t have to try. It will grow with little to no human help at all and will reseed itself every year.

There are a few other species of chickweed, but none are as widespread and abundant as S. media. In Michigan we have at least 3 species reported, maybe more but the others aren’t really worth going out to hunt for in my opinion (if someone feels differently, let me know by replying to this newsletter!)

That said, if you would like seeds and don’t know where to find the plant you can buy some here at O’Neill Seeds or reach out to me and I can have some available for purchase. (But really, it grows everywhere so you shouldn’t need to buy any!)

Quick Personal Update:

This year I have a few main goals related to this newsletter:

1. Start stocking perennial plants for you to purchase. I plan on getting my nursery license this spring.

2. Get the newsletter up to 500 subscribers (that’s partially dependent on you guys!) I’m sneaking up to 200 so I think that’s a reasonable goal!

3. Get some products in an online shop to sell. I’m really wanting to do some foraged ingredient products (like balms, teas, and soaps) but I also have a foraging resource I’m designing that I would love to offer for sale. No spoilers but I think it could really help new and experienced foragers plan their foraging for the year!

Let me know if there’s any product or plant in particular that you’d like for me to carry, and I’ll see what I can do!