Comments on: Use Raspberry Leaves to Make Your Own Herbal Tea

By: Eric F.

Eric F. — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:23:25 +0000

Might sound weird but Dandelions are also edible. Timing is crucial to really enjoy them. Once the flower buds are visible, the taste becomes acid and quite unpleasant.

As soon as you see them, you can collect them by cutting the plant right above ground. They are filled with vitamin C, help to protect your kidney and are great in a salad (A+ when mixed with boiled eggs and sardines).

So, if you hate the yellow flower beds, you can eat them

By: partgypsy

partgypsy — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:40:45 +0000

kesflower, what you call lemon grass we call sour grass, my daughter loves to pick and eat it, along with picking honeysuckles blossoms to get the nectar out by pulling out the stamen. We have bee balm and their leaves kind of taste like mint, along with our various herbs mostly basil and parsleys.
We are also big lovers of dandelion greens. My greek grandmother annually in spring picked various greens especially dandelion greens, and boil and dress with oil and lemon juice. Our backyard is all organic so anything goes there, but we don’t pick or eat anything where it may be treated.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:50:03 +0000

perhaps an advisory note about if you aren’t positive about what you are doing, don’t be eating anything from the wild or from your neighborhood. second, ensure that the stuff you use and eat isn’t commingling with poisonous or inedible items–i.e. if there is poison ivy mixed in your rasberry vines, you might look for the rasberry vines that aren’t near the poison ivy, etc.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:04:24 +0000

So I fail to see the relevance to the main purpose of this blog. I hope it doesn’t become a reguler item.

By: Cheap Like Me

Cheap Like Me — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:51:33 +0000

Purslane! It grows abundantly around our yard. It is a good source of many minerals and vitamins A and C. (http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20g0.html) It can be cooked, or just throw it into a salad with other greens.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:57:19 +0000

I love raspberry tea. I never considered making my own. Thanks for this post! I enjoy your blog!

By: erin

erin — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:25:22 +0000

We had chickweed at our old house that we would add to salads but haven’t found it growing in the new house. We add borage and natsturtium flowers to salads. I didn’t plant the borage - it just appeared but I did plant the nasturtiums so perhaps they don’t count. I use mint in mojitos. Our raspberry canes are still small so I won’t harvest any leaves yet but I drank raspberry tea through 2 pregnancies and loved the soothing taste. I have used lemon balm in cookies. That’s all I can think of for now but your article has given me incentive to find out what the weeds are in our yard and see if we can eat them!

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:01:33 +0000

My wife swears by raspberry tea during…well… “lady time.” I know this sounds crazy; but it also seems to smooth-out mood swings as well.

Here is her take on it:
http://mrslaurenchristine.blogspot.com/2008/04/amazing.html

By: kesflower

kesflower — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:30:05 +0000

My husband, a former forester, loves to pick redbud flowers in the spring for salads, they taste just like lettuce. Lemon grass (they look like shamrocks, but have little yellow flowers) is a weed that loves to grow under my daylilies, and tastes just like lemons, it makes a lovely lemon tea. Sourwood leaves really are sour. And when spring onions make my yard look like it needs to be mown 2 days after the last one, I go out with scissors and we have scallions for dinner!

By: Serendipity

Serendipity — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:02:26 +0000

You’ve combined two of my great loves: tea and sweet revenge. Okay, not so much the revenge, but your humorous approach is appreciated.

By: LAmom

LAmom — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:48:29 +0000

I love wild salads, and I’ve got a few blogposts about them:
L. A. power breakfast
More garden herbs
The farm is with me

By: Saro

Saro — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:30:40 +0000

What a good idea, thanks for sharing. I will look into making herbal tea once I start up my garden (probably next year).

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 19 May 2008 05:56:55 +0000

Herbal? No thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:49:21 +0000

What an interesting idea! I’d never heard of this one before.

Around the Southwest, a strange-looking plant called Mormon tea grows…looks like something from dinosaur days. Supposedly Mormon pioneers used to brew a tea from it–I’ve never tried it. Here’s a picture: http://www.desertusa.com/april97/du_mormontea.html

A variety of purslane is called Mexican spinach in these parts. They say you can cook it much as you would cook spinach, and it’s supposed to be good to eat. Not the most appetizing-looking plant though: it appears to be a succulent.

You can eat jellies from the fruit of prickly pear, and prickly pear pads are edible–they’re called nopalitos.

By: hak

hak — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:55:53 +0000

One of the plants I just introduced to “Hak Gardens” is the prickly pear cactus. Living in the arid southwest, we have the pleasure of two growing seasons with the first one coming to an end in the next six weeks or so. July and August is rough on everything when the temps are above 110.

These particular cacti came from Mexico via my local cooperative extension. I planted three separate pads a month ago and have already harvested one nopale (new paddle) and will use that in a salad with some other lettuces, spinach and arugula from our raised bed gardens. The nopale tastes like a cross between a green bean and asparagus. Not tons of flavor by itself, but plenty good in salads.

By: LoveandSalt

LoveandSalt — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:33:10 +0000

I just blanched and froze a bushel of dandelion leaves today–they are sweet and tender now–the ones that haven’t blossomed. Later I will dig up big dandelions and roast the roots for teas and “dandelion coffee.”
I had a delicious dandelion salad with bacon and hard boiled eggs. I also made dandelion vinegar (which won’t be ready for two months. It’s unbelievable what you can do with this plant, and it’s incredibly good for you too.
Next week–dandelion wine!
Last summer I learned to cook milkweed (buds, then pods–delicious!) and nettles. I am going crazy searching for chickweed. Going crazy because I’m sure it’s right underfoot and I haven’t learned to recognize it.

By: Amberlynn

Amberlynn — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:38:17 +0000

My midwives have suggested that I drink plenty of raspberry leaf tea to help calm my contractions (I’m due in June, and it’s still too early for me to “get going”). Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until next year to harvest the abundantly wild leaves. (I too live in the PDX area.) This year, we’ve taken many of our neighbors volunteer starts to begin our own berry patch.