Is this sorrel?

[~ladybug]

Hi friends,

We have this growing on the back edge of our yard. I was about to mow it down and then wondered if I could put it in green smoothies. From the research I did, it looks like wood sorrel and is edible.

I'm getting ready to start a green smoothie challenge so to have something so abundant growing in my yard would be great.

Before I chow down, can anyone confirm that this is sorrel and have you ever used it in smoothies?

Thanks for your help!

http://i39.tinypic.com/b88w8l.jpg

[spicyfull]

Looks like weeds I just pulled today. I don't know if they are Sorrel, I'd like to know also. I try to pull them before they have that yellow flower and make more weeds for next year. I know they are Perenials.

[freshlight]

I found these -they look slightly different though

http://www.countyofkings.com/ag%20commissioner/Ag%20Services%20Pages/Ag%20Services%20Images/Weed%20pictures/big%20creeping%20wood%20sorrel.jpg

http://www.kitsapgov.com/dcd/lu_env/native_plants/images/native_plants/sorrel.jpg

[spicyfull]

Thanks for the pictures Fresh, Mine have yellow Flowers. I must do more research because I'm throwning them in the Trash. DID YOU HEAR........THE TRASH. I think I'll taste one tomorrow because I still have plenty. This is the time of year when they are everywhere.

[kaybee]

yeah! yeah! its WOOD SORREL. taste it. if it tastes soury, its wood sorrel. theres another type of sorrel too, but this one is so much prettier. i like it in salads instead of smoothies so you can still see the pretty shape ;) i think its the prettiest thing to put in salads, along with edible flowers. look out for chickweed too, that grows in yards and can go in your salads/smoothies too

i keep trying to dig up little patches of wood sorrel and move them cuz i cant find seed to buy anywhere for it. ours has pink flowers.

awww, spicyful, dont pull them up! they are edible weeds and so pretty in salads. im pretty sure they can have pink, purple, or yellow flowers.

sorry, ive become a bit of a sensitive forager lately.... ;) its making it hard to prepare my garden beds... because i keep finding stuff i can eat and dont want to destroy it, but the beds have to get dug and planted... i keep trying to transplant dandelions even--yes, dandelions. and i rescued and replanted most of the chickweed from the greenhouse that the owner thinks is worlds worst weed and wanted it gone. i hope he never finds out that i just ordered chickweed SEED from mountain rose herbs and am gonna plant it outside in his yard, lol. on second thought, i hope he doesnt tear it up when he sees it growing.. it IS a weed but its so yum and its so good for you!

[~ladybug]

Thanks!

Yeps, that's what it is. freshlight, the first pic is it. (2nd didn't come up.) Thanks for finding them.

kaybee, it is sour. Tasty too... reminds me of sour weed I ate growing up. I'll have to look for chickweed. Have you been successful at moving dandelions?

So far I have sorrel, clover, dandelions, grape leaves, spinach, evening primrose & parsley growing. Makes me feel healthier just thinking about all those greens. :D

spicyfull! Yea! It's exciting to find you have free, organic greens growing in the yard.

Happily spreading weeds everywhere...
(my farmer dad would be rolling over)

[didi_dancer]

Yes that is wood sorel,
make an excellent sprout and avacodo raw sandwich.
But it is a little sour for smoothies, might what to combine it with something sweeter like baby spinach.
Also you probably have chickweed, which is another (i think better tasting)weed that is very very very common in backyards. Look it up online. It is really wonderful in smoothies. Has a sweet green taste.

[~ladybug]

Thanks didi_dancer!

I just made a wild green smoothie and it was wonderful. I went out and picked clover, dandelion, sorrel, grass (yep just plain ole grass) and also added some spring greens from the fridge. Besides the greens, I added banana, almonds & cacao. The bananas were really ripe so it was plenty sweet.

I looked up chickweed but haven't yet figured out if I have it growing. Probably... we have justa plenty of weeds.

http://i40.tinypic.com/17ae09.gif

[kaybee]

ladybug--i dont think my dandelions transplanted well..they were looking pretty dead yesterday...but it had only been 2 days, so maybe theyll recover. i just ordered dandelion and chickweed seeds from mountain rose herbs, lol. (check out their cool seeds...i got stevia and some other random stuff as well)

lots of sorrel with dandelion greens, strawberries, salt,and olive oil in a salad is really nice. the sour sorrel, bitter dandelion, sweet strawberry, and salty all balance one another really nicely. also keep an eye out for wild garlic/onion...apparently you can use the flowers too and they are nice in salad. im dodgey about identifying this though; i took it to someone to id it before i would use it. there are some wild plants that look-alikes, some of which are poisonous.
dont forget to use nettles too. surely you have some of those around.

[T-Bird]

You lot are sure brave!!!


I aspire to be like you!


Some foraging concerns I have:

Got this off the interent in regards to chickweed:


The weed is an important constituent in the diet of many farmland birds. It has medicinal and therapeutic uses, is rich in vitamin C and may be eaten as a salad vegetable. It can accumulate nitrate and may become toxic to stock. In addition, it has a relatively high oxalic acid content and a low level of calcium that may have an adverse effect on dietary calcium bioavailability.

And with eating the dandelion greens about the place, I worry about the years and years of herbicide wars raged against it. Where do the seeds come from and have they been altered through herbicides?

I have often laughed at myself - pulling up dandelions in the yard, and buying organic dandelion greens at the store.....but I worry on the origins....

[~ladybug]

kaybee, you're dodgey about the wild onions & garlic? I thought those were pretty easy to identify? I'm leary of getting something poisonous too. Seems the only way you can know for sure is to try stuff... then, ooops... might be too late.

Heading over there to check out that herb site.

T-Bird, I guess there could be some danger from the origins. Never thought about that. But it seems it's tons healthier to pick it from the yard than anything you buy from the store. Dunno. I just remember doing this years ago and I felt the best I ever felt in my life (it was lambquarters & grape leaves at the time). Can't wait to see if I can feel that good again. Straight from the sun and soil - live energy!!

[iwuvmydoggy]

this is sorrel:

http://www.cherrygal.com/images/BloodSorrel.jpg

http://www.cherrygal.com/images/Sorrel.jpg

http://www.cherrygal.com/images/BloodSorrel1.JPG

[kaybee]

ladybug--

yeah i felt dodgey about the wild onions/garlic because i havent been able to find any pics on the internet that look exactly like them. i asked the people that told me about it and showed them some and they confirmed it was...but i still think its weird i cant find the exact thing on the internet. i can find the flowers that look the same, but the leaves on the internet seem to look wider. it DEF has an oniony smell though when you tear a leaf, and when you eat it. i was excited because its growing all around the garden--never been here this earlier in the year before... i guess its a weed here. but then i tried it and i was a little disappointed--too strong for me! my tummy didnt like it too much but then i have a tummy problem with strong onions. the FLOWERS however were really nice to put in salads. i guess you can use the flowers, the lady told me you could

hmmm. im not to worried about the chickweed.. i got most of my info on chickweed etc from this site www.healingwiseforum.com which is a GREAT site and everybody seems pretty knowledgeable and i havent seen anything bad about chickweed there and people talk about going out and picking BOWLS of it!. i guess everythign in moderation, but its funny how these "studies" warn us about "too much" x y z in natural plants, but most of the population is eating so many chemicals and bad stuff anyway that are probably way more damaging than the stuff in comfrey or chickweed or whatever. so it scares people off the wild or natural stuff, and then they go eat burgers and processed food instead :eek:

i got my dandelion seeds from mountain rose herbs. theyre organic. i can understand the hesitation over using dandelions from the yard/lawn, if you think its been sprayed for years previously, even if youre not currently spraying it.... i think id seek a cleaner source...but then again, they do urban gardening projects in polluted cities and still eat the stuff from there, even in lots where houses have previously been, i think...so i dont know. i wonder how long it takes for land to "clean" itself of chemicals/pollutants...i guess it depends on the pollutant. and someone doing one of those projects once in the inner city told me that certain plants absorb more pollutants from the soil than others, so they just grow for food the ones that done. i dont know which ones though.

tbird--if you really want dandelions but are worried about hte origins, you could put in a raised bed garden and then plant organic dandelion seeds in it... i dont know the history of your lawn, so i dont know about using the ones in it. i dont think id worry too much about if the seeds that blew in there have been damaged though...unfortunately, theres no "pure land" anymore, either literally, or in the case of chemical-free food...even organic food is subject to pollution by tractor fumes, air pollution, polluted water/rain, and the stuff it is fertilized with, like chicken feathers and fish emulsion, well, i dont know cuz i havent researched it, but im not sure thats all organic either... anyway, if you planted seeds, they wouldnt be "wild" per-se, but if youre buying them from the store anyway, those arent wild either.

Ladybug--yeah mountain rose herbs website is cool and/but for info on specific herbs/foraging plants, etc, www.healingwiseforum.com is really great too. i was afraid of chickweed, even though 2 people had confirmed to me that it was chickweed....i was never confident that every new patch of it i found in the greenhouse was really chickweed....until i read on the healingwiseforum site (also www.susunweed.com) that a definitive identifier of chickweed is that if you hold it up to the light you can see a delicate row of hairs going up the stem--and the location of the hairs changes to a different side above every new leaf that forms...dont know if that makes sense, but anyway, things like this made me feel confident in positively identifying it. and you dont want the hairy, mouse-eared chickweed, you want the other one. check out hte pics on the site and then check for the hairs.

wow those sorrel pics are really beautiful. we have the one in the middle here as well --sheep sorrel i think--but id love to know where to get the other varieties, they are so pretty!

[~ladybug]

Those pics are gorgeous. Thank you! So... you sent me off "weeding" for more info. There are actually more types of sorrel than these but here are 4 types...
http://i42.tinypic.com/2qjy7et.jpg

Cool huh? I would love to learn more. Is there a school for such? lol! You never know if we might have to depend on what's growing in the wild. Ha! I bet I wouldn't be overweight then.

kaybee, you are just chock full of good info. Thank you so much! Yea, I've always been amazed how I can scrutinize raw stuff but didn't think twice about those lardy fries. What we're doing now is heads and shoulders above where I came from!!

[spicyfull]

Yes "KayBee" you've got it bad.....transplanting Dandelion? Mine just grow and I have to share some of them with the Weed Can. You need to Write A BOOK and share your knowledge. Just start with one page at a time, One Weed at a time. Thanks for Sharing.

[kaybee]

spicyfull--unfortunately we dont actually have an overabundance of them in the garden...just a few here and there, and theres not much for greens yet this time of year except the wild ones; the stuff im growing is too tiny thus far... so im trying to save them.. yes, im probably insane, today i TRANSPLANTED beets from the greenhouse to outside because i want to use the greens off of them. I dont care about the beets, but there are so few greens right now.... i want to salvage whatever i can :) they were happy in the greenhouse, but the guy who owns the greenhouse wants them OUT to put his corn in there. ugh. so yeah, i tried transplanting BEETS of all things. something thats DEF not meant to be transplanted. he wants the parsley torn up or transplanted out too. its 2 feet tall, i dont think its going to transplant. frustrating :/

there is a huge abundance of both dandelions and chickweed...but its on the roadsides and growing out of the cracks of the stonewalls... not the most chemical-free place to forage from. i realized today though that it was a bit absurd of me to actually purchase dandelion seeds, which i actually did but dont have yet.... because i could have just collected them, lol! we've all known since we were little kids what dandelion seeds are/look like! i just forgot i guess :) sometimes...well...sometimes we just dont think. lol.

im always worried about not having enough food here, and about the garden not producing enough, because if you dont grow it yourself, you more or less cant get it, and almost certainly cant get it organic, if at all.

the translplanted dandys still not doing so hot, but the rescued chickweed is taking off ;)