Chickweed growers/eaters???

[T-Bird]

I've recently acquired some chickweed seeds and wanted to get them started in my garden this year as an easy growing regular source of greens.

Found there are some cautionary notes on eating it - nitrate poisoning? Anyone heard of this?

Any regular chickweed eaters have any problems?


http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/Chickweed.htm

[kaybee]

yay glad you got some seeds, sorry i never got any to you!

if you look at healingwiseforums there are articles and info on chickweed, people there seem to use it abundantly with no problems.

i LOVE the stuff and make AMAZING pesto out of it. its a very mild green, which is rare for greens. i didnt like it at first as it was a bit "grassy" tasting but now i cant get enough of it. (too bad theres none growing here at the moment..it was growing in greenhouses but they weeded it all out). i started transplanting it to different spots in the garden though, and the patches seemed to die off after a while, so i h avent figured out how to keep it going. it LOVED growing in the greenhouse, but the guys who had it growing in their greenhouses kept trying to get it out. too bad cuz its lovely and survives cold temps :( and probably more nutritious than the stuff they wanted to plant there.

also...i just looked at that link and it seems to be talking about people taking pills or capsules..i wonder if there was anything else in the pills or capsules... i havent seen anything about anyone having problems using it fresh.

[T-Bird]

ok kaybee, i will join in the chickweed eating.

I was worried because I was planning to use in green smoothies - and I go for 2-3 cups at a time, so that's a lot.

Now - I can send you some seeds! send me an email with the address and I'll send some over.

[kaybee]

haha thanks. i actually ordered some more from mtn rose herbs but forgot them back in the states at xmas and mom is trying to locate them amidst the tornado of belongings i left behind lol. ive nowhere to plant at the moment anyway :( dying for my own land but everyones hanging on tight right now.

i think i would 1. ask the question on the herb forum just in case (the peeps over there arent really raw fooders, so i dont know if they would be consuming the amounts we consume, BUT i think some of them would know whether large amounts were harmful,) and 2. like everything else: rotate your greens. i probly used a couple cups when i made pesto and a few times just ate a bunch of it as salad (lemon garlic olive oil), sometimes put some in smoothies. but there wasnt enough to use huge amounts daily. i dont think youre going to be able to get 2-3 cups a day harvest though, at least not for a while, so i dont think youll have to worry about going overboard by using it everyday. the pesto was def my favorite, but then again its rare that i find a green smoothie that im friendly with (though today i scored with mango, pomegranite, melon and spinach. LOVELY)

[streetsurfer]

What I gathered in reading about it yesterday after you posed this question T-bird, was that much of the information regarding nitrate poisoning applied to ruminants (cattle/sheep) where foraging could subject them to large quantities of high nitrate plants.A Colorado State University article talked of nitrates being higher as a result of plant stress and weather extremes. You are going to be controlling the factors to a large degree while growing so it will not be like pastures full of it that went through a drought followed by damp period. That is one condition that could raise levels to a point where it might become a concern to livestock continuously browsing on it.

I saw mention of SIDS in infants but didn't dig deep in to that. That site seemed to be focused on high nitrate levels in crops as a result of over fertilization and runoff, things which you again are in control of.

Nitrates are in all plants, so my guess is also that with rotation and simply not taking it to an extreme, you should be safe.

[T-Bird]

good info streetsurfer, thx!

kaybee - where is the herb forum you speak of?

[kaybee]

www.healingwiseforums.com. ill probly get kicked off of here for posting it...apparently its "illegal" on this website to post links to other forums since i got a warning for doing so before....odd because i see people post all sorts of links all the time (and I dont see in the forum rules that its prohibited)... but if us here dont have the info you need and them guys there might, it seems it would be reasonable to post a link to help you (and others who might have a similar question) get the info you need so you dont poison yourself...

[T-Bird]

got it kaybee, thanks! Feel free to delete if need be!