Solstice Salad
Wild Chives: are available all winter. Minced finely, they wake up winter taste buds: I add them to salads or baked potatoes or mash into butter.
Cronewort (Artemisia vulgaris): is sending new leaves up from its rhizomes. If you want less cronewort in the garden next year, pull up the rhizomes with their leaves, rinse the dirt off, and chop into the whole thing into your salad, or make them into a delicious vinegar.
Catnip (Nepetaria cataria) and other mints, such as lemon balm, thyme, rosemary, and bergamot, may be hardier than you think. Take a look around and see which of the mints is still green. A leaf or two, finely minced, of any tasty mint – yes, there is lots of motherwort, and it’s a mint, but it’s too bitter to be considered tasty – adds zip to winter salads.
Mallow (Malva neglecta) thrives in the cool weather, which always strikes me as odd, since most of the plants in this family are tropical, like hibiscus. As you can see, this mallow is spreading wide and even blooming. I suppose the bees are flying when the sun shines and the temperature is warm enough, so why not bloom?! There are plenty of bland tasting, respiratory-strengthening leaves to be had for many months for cold-weather salads.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) is another girl who thrives in the cold. I suspect I could find some in flower if I searched. Look around and I am sure you will discover some chickweed near you. She is gentle-tasting, though a bit stringy, and thus an ideal salad plant. If you have a lot of chickweed, make a tincture too.
Giant Chickweed (Stellaria pubera) is not as happy in the cold as its smaller sister. I think of giant chickweed as summer chickweed. But with the weather so mild, I notice she is sending out a lot of new growth. And she is oh so good in salad.
Cress in bloom. Like all members of its family, cresses have flowers with four petals. Many mustard family plants wait for cold weather to germinate and grow. They often contain compounds that help us ward off cold and flu viruses, as well as cancer.
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria officinalis) is also a mustard family plant, but it doesn’t bloom until next spring. The dark green leaves are hardy and abundant in open woods, roadsides, and gardens. I do my best to eat some every day to stay healthy in cold and flu season.
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