So this list is simply of the plants that are special to eat or have attracted my attention or, sometimes, that I have tried and found to be wanting or I have used in not usual ways, or simply have interesting photos.
Aegopodium podagraria (Ground elder)
- This very common weed is not to everyone's taste but can be very good to eat if it is to yours!
Alliaria petiolata (Garlic mustard or Hedge garlic)
- Very common in shady lanes. I find it not worthwhile. It has a pleasant garlic smell when bruised, but this does not survive when eaten and it has a not pleasant additional taste. Nor is the texture particularly appetising.
- Allium schoenoprasum (Chives)
- Everybody knows the garden chive. However it is not uncommon in the wild. I continually notice large clumps of it in the roadsides around Cambridge.
Allium Triquetrum (Three cornered leek)
- An allium that grows wild in the south west of England. We picked some bulbs up while on holiday in Cornwall, not knowing what it was. Turns out to have multiplied very fast, be a very pretty garden plant and a very nice addition to the salad bowl. Something we would not now be without in our garden.
Allium ursinum Ramsons
- Lots of photos and info!
- Anthriscus sylvestris (Cow parsley)
- Eat this if you wish: the young foliage has a not unpleasant texture, but to my palate it is tasteless and a waste of time!
Be careful though - it is possible to mistake the extremely poisonous hemlock for cow parsley, so if you are going to experiment, make quite sure you can recognise hemlock!
Armoracia rusticana (Horse radish)
- Horse radish is very common on roadsides and waste ground. The root is well known, but you can also use the young leaves as a tasty addition to salads.
Atriplex hortensis (Orache)
- A beautiful garden plant with various colour (red, orange, green) foliage. It is not particularly tasty and the texture is fine, though nothing special. We use some young leaves as decorative addition to salads but tend to leave it as a garden ornament.
- Beta vulgaris (Sea Beet)
- Sea beet is the ancestor of all of the cultivated beets, including beetroot, sugar beet, swiss chard. Although the leaves of all of the cultivars can be eaten, somehow none of them is quite as good as a really good wild sea-beet (with the exception of swiss chard, which equals the wild parent).
Beta vulgaris is a member of the Chenopodiaceae - which include the goosefoots, oraches, spinach, glassworts - many of which are also edible and good.
- Borago officinalis (Borage)
- The blue flowers can be added to salads and the leaves can also be eaten, though they are rather hairy.
- Brassica napus Rape
- Oilseed rape is very easily recognised. However - the young greens, before the flower has opened make an excellent cooked vegetable, probably the nicest 'spring greens' of all. It is also an excellent addition to spring salads - it has a mild, pleasant cabbagey flavour. It has its own page! It's also good for kimchee
Do not use one the flowers are opened as the whole plant then takes on an unpleasant flavour, similar to that of a field of rape in flower.
Brassica oleracea
Brassica oleracea (Wild Cabbage)
- Is this specimen true wild cabbage, or a cultivar reverting to a wild type?
Cardamine amara (Large bittercress)
- There are several bittercresses, most are edible. This one is very appetising in appearance but not to everyone's taste (the clue is in the common name).
Cardamine hirsuta (Hairy Bittercress)
- A common garden weed. It's not very large so is easily overlooked, but the leaves have a pleasant peppery tase, like watercress so (if enough can be gathered) make a nice addition to salads. It is one of the earliest plants to appear in spring.
Cardamine pratensis (Cuckoo flower)
- In some parts of the country cuckoo flowers are very evident in spring. The leaves (if you can gather enough of them) have a pleasant cress-like taste and are a fine addition to salads. Propagation details and more photos in the link.
- Chenopodium album (Fat Hen)
- Chenopodium bonus-henricus (Good king henry)
- Chenopodium rubrum (Red goosefoot)
- Many members of the chenopodaceae are edible, some very good. Good King Henry seeds are available from seed merchants. Fat hen is a very common garden weed. However it's a very good spinach substitute (use the leaves, young stalks and the young flower heads) so we let it grow to a suitable size before weeding out for the cooking-pot! The young leaves are also of a pleasant texture raw and make a good addition to a salad.
Sea Kale
- Sea Kale - a delightful plant, but protected in the wild.
- Chrysosplenium alternifolium (Golden Saxifrage)
- Chrysosplenium oppositifolium (Golden Saxifrage)
- Two related water-side plant which are quite decorative and have a pleasant peppery taste. Probably a plant about to be discovered for the mixed-leaf salad trade!
Crithmum maritimum (Rock Samphire)
- Possibly an acquired taste, but one I find quite pleasant. My wife does not, so we don't use it, but it can be added to salads. Rock Samphire is an umbellifer and is no relation to marsh samphire and is a totally different flavour.
Eryngium Maritimum (Sea Holly)
- Too rare and beautiful a plant to disturb!
- Foeniculum vulgare (Fennel)
- Surely everybody knows the common garden fennel. It is grown as 'Florence fennel' for the swollen basal bulb, but also as a herb for the leaves. The herbal form is far stronger in flavour than the sweet fennel and is not uncommon growing wild. A small amount added to a salad goes quite a long way but use only the young shoots as the older leaves are too tough and fibrous.
- Galium aparine (Goosegrass, cleavers, sticky willie)
- This very common weed is in fact edible. It doesn't have a lot of flavour and, from the feel of it, you might think it would be unpleasant but the young, green tips are in fact quite an acceptable texture for salads, although they are really rather tasteless!
The Galium family includes nearly 300 similar species, including the bedstraws.
- Heracleum sphondylium Hogweed
- One of the best of all vegetables (whether wild or commercial). The young leaves, leaf and flower stalks are cooked, just as you would braise celery. It has its own page.
- Humulus lupulus (Hop)
- Hops are quite common and the young shoots (the top two or three nodes) may be snapped off and steamed to make a fine vegetable. A sort or poor-man's asparagus! One wild vegetable we seek out eagerly when it's in season.
Humulus lupulus is related to cannabis, but no, I'm not aware of it having any narcotic properties. However, though I've never tried it myself, I have also heard of Cannabis sativa being used as a pot herb!
- Ligusticum scoticum (Lovage)
- A herb we would not be without in our garden. It once was a very popular pot-herb but it has fallen out of favour, However we find it as versatile as any other herb.
The fresh, young shoots and leaves make a fine and tasty addition to a salad, and it's a fine garden plant which we would not be without.
- Melissa officinalis (Lemon Balm)
- Balm has been cultivated and there are now different flavours. It's not a particularly good textured plant, but a small amount of Lemon balm can make a nice addition to a salad. We find it a particularly good mix with garden mint.
- Mentha aquatica etc(Water mint and others)
- Ordinary garden mint is a hybrid between water mint and (mostly) spearmint. The mint family hybridises very easily and water mint is one on the parents. Water mint is very common and is quite edible although its flavour does not compare well with the cultivated hybrids. There are many other mints - all of them can make a useful addition to a salad, some tastier than others.
- Montia perfoliata (Spring beauty)
- The young leaves make a fine addition to a spring salad. They have a pleasant texture and a mild flavour. Can also be cooked as spinach.
- Myrrhis odorata Sweet cicely
- A wild herb that we grow in our garden and would not be without: as a basis for a spring salad, the young shoots (both leaf and flower) with their stalks are hard to beat.
In fact the whole plant can be eaten - the roots can be cooked, as can the leaves. We tried both and would not bother again: the roots are hard to dig up, difficult to clean and do not taste good when cooked. But that's simply our opinion
Sweet cicely looks very much like cow parsley, but is a paler green leaf, a denser white flower and is a much less straggly plant, so very decorative for a garden. Be aware that the poisonous hemlock looks very similar - though once you have smelled sweet cicely, you could not confuse the two.
Nasturtium officinale Watercress
- Nasturtium microphyllum
- has a page to itself, photos, identification, similar plants.
- Oreganum vulgare (Oregano or Marjoram)
- A common enough herb which grows wild in United Kingdom and which has long been cultivated. The young leaves make a very tasty addition to a salad.
Poterium sanguisorba (Salad burnet)
- Why this is called 'Salad' burnett I do not know. Not worth eating in my opinion!
Rumex acetosa (Common sorrel)
- There are several plants of the Rumex group (which also includes the Docks) that are acidic and can be eaten as 'sorrel'. Several of them are sold as herbs and are well worth cultivating for salads - especially if you have children!
Rumex acetosella (Sheep's sorrel)
- very common, burt usually insignificant
Rumex scutatus (French or Buckler leaved sorrel)
- Another of the plants of the Rumex group.
- Salicornia sp (Glasswort or Samphire)
- A family of woody perennials or annals inhabiting salt marshes. Many of them are so similar they are difficult to differentiate.
Samphire is picked from the marshes and is sold in the English marshes. It's a plant that if pleasant to eat raw as you walk through the marshes, having a mild, salty flavour. Cooked and served with melted butter it is delicious - the flesh of the slightly older plants slides easily off the somewhat woody inner stalk as you suck it.
Sinapsis arvensis (Charlock)
- A very common weed of arable fields especially on the field edges.
- Smyrnium olusatrum (Alexanders)
- Once a seaside plant, over the last 30 years or so I have observed it spreading along roadsides in East Anglia and elsewhere - no doubt because of the salting of the roads - so that it is now a common roadside plant, even in Cambridgeshire.
It's not a plant to suit everybody's taste. The young leaves can be used in salad or can be cooked as spinach. However to my mind the best part of the plant are the peduncles (see Wikipedia - peduncle), picked just before the flower heads start to open. You'll soon learn how much of the stalk is nice to eat. The stalks should be peeled (as the outside can be distinctly fibrous) and then cooked.
- Stellaria media (Chickweed)
- Chickweed, the common garden weed, is edible. Not particularly to be enthused over but it can be an acceptable filler to replace lettuce in a wild salad as it has a pleasant enough texture, if not a lot of flavour. It has the advantage of often being available all year round.
- Symphytum officinale (Comfrey)
- Not a plant I have fancied, but the leaves may be eaten. They are rather glutinous.
- Tilia X Europaea (Lime tree)
- Young lime tree leaves make an excellent snack. They don't have a lot of flavour but have a pleasant texture.
- Cat's Tail (Bulrush, Cat's Tail, Reedmace)
- The roots and inner core of the reedmace are a pleasant food. Other parts of the plant can also be eaten.
- Urtica dioica (Stinging Nettle)
- Eating nettles is something of a cult. However young stinging nettles are a very pleasant substitute for spinach.
Veronica anagallis-aquatica and V. catenata (Water speedwell)
- Two similar plants, differing only in the flower colour.
Veronica beccabunga (Brooklime)
- This can be added to salads. It's texture is fine and it's easy to grow and very common in the wild. However it's not very pleasant to my taste.
- Valeriana officinalis (Valerian)
- The common garden valerian can be used in salads: it's not a particularly notable taste but the young shoots are a good texture and start growing when other salad crops are in short supply. The commercial corn salad is a close relative: common valerian, to my taste, is just as good.
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