Harvesting Lambsquarters for winter use.

I am getting ready to harvest the rest of my wonderful Lambsquarters to use later in the winter.  The leaves can be ground up to add to soups.  The seeds make a highly nutritious food staple for multiple uses in recipes. They can be harvested in the fall and ground into cereal or used as flour for bread. Similar to quinoa, lambsquarter seeds can be easily sprouted in one to two days. Add the sprouts to any meal to benefit from the rich nutrients.  Lambsquarter seeds also make great microgreens. They start out small and frail looking but given time grow into healthy plants with delicious flavor. My wild harvesting friends say to wait till the seeds turn a purplish color and sure enough I have one plant whose seeds have just turned a purplish red color so I will dry them now.

Foraging at the Tulsa Botanical Gardens

What a delightful day to take a walk.  We had a wonderful turn out for the foraging walk today.  We had great questions,  hopefully useful information shared and hopefully inspired a few people to take a closer look at their own back yards and discover the bounty of wild edibles.  One of the questions asked was " What websites might we check when researching wild edibles that grow around Oklahoma?"  Here is a great one with a trusted author.  http://www.oklahomawildcrafting.com/  Jackie Dill has been mentoring many of us through out the years.  From time to time you can of course, check Claire Goes Foraging for in season recipes, foraging walks etc too. 

Thanks to Lori and Margarette at the Botanical Garden, we all enjoyed a refreshing glass of sumac tea at the end of our short walk.

Foraging walk with Margee Aycock and Jess Fussell at Tulsa's Botanical Garden in September

Mark your calendars for Sept 19th from 10-11.  Jess Fussell and I will bring examples of plants that we might find on our walk and then we will embark on a wild plant scavenger hunt.  I will have copies of Claire Goes Foraging for sale at the event.