NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
March 30, 2000
[EDITOR'S NOTE: PLEASE INCLUDE BYLINE WHEN USING THIS STORY.]
By Ron Smith, NDSU Extension Horticulturist
It's almost a rite of passage. Precipitated by the snowmelt, calls concerning weeds coming up in lawns, flower beds and vegetable gardens stream into my office. Usually, it's turf that gets noticed first. Sometime during the first two or three weeks of April, I'll begin hearing complaints about all the "crabgrass" homeowners have in their lawns.
I guess people call it crabgrass because they are reflecting the way they feel about this pest. But they're wrong: It isn't crabgrass (a warm-season annual that hasn't yet germinated); it's quackgrass, a cool-season perennial.
Even poets get it wrong, as I observed in this short poem by Lynn Ungar, titled "Crabgrass," which begins this way:
We've all admired it,
even as we've cursed
the matted roots, white fingers
pointing toward new frontiers,
the tangled tapestry stubbornly
weaving the world in place.
The "white fingers" are the rhizomes of the quackgrass weaving through the soil. Crabgrass lacks this structure. Still, quackgrass is indeed cursed, as are the dandelions that will soon follow.
The question plaguing many homeowners is not "What purpose might these weeds serve?" but rather, "How can I get rid of them?" Indeed, a huge service industry has exploded in the United States in the last 30 years to answer the latter question. Yet despite the billions of dollars homeowners have spent during the last three decades on lawn-care services, the weeds are still winning.
As a child, I recall neighbors harvesting the dandelion greens in the early spring for salads, the flowers to make wine and the roots to make a hot, coffee-like drink. What our grandparents used as an everyday herb, science is now rediscovering.
Dandelions are one of Mother Nature's nutrient-dense plants. Yet we grow and eat carrots, for instance, because they contain the beta carotene that our bodies can convert into vitamin A. But when comparing equal proportions (by weight) of raw carrots and dandelion greens, the dandelions come out ahead in terms of beta carotene content. Yes, raw dandelion greens are an excellent source of beta carotene as well as being a low-calorie food--only 13 calories per half-cup serving.
And dandelions' nutritional benefits don't stop there: The raw greens also are a good source of vitamin C, potassium, calcium and iron, and they contain some magnesium, phosphorus and the B vitamins thiamin and riboflavin. A half-cup of raw dandelion greens also contains about 1 gram of fiber.
So, why do we Americans spend so much time and money trying--in vain--to eradicate dandelions from our lives? It is due largely to our increasingly urban society, with which came lawns and leisure time and the notion that our lawns shouldn't contain these pests. For a change, why not try digging dandelions and using them as previous generations did rather than dumping chemicals on them in an attempt to wipe them out?
To get the best dandelions for eating, harvest the leaves when they are young and tender, before flowering. Shade-grown plants will be less bitter, and the new seedlings that come up as a result of the spring bloom will be the best selections in the summer. Simply cut the top off the plant--right down to the root--to force new, tender growth to emerge. Make sure the plants you select for salad or cooked greens are at least 75 feet from the roadside. And never harvest any from sites where there have been attempts to kill them, or other weeds, with chemicals.
Use dandelion greens in soups and stews, or just select the most tender shade-grown greens, sprinkle on some vinaigrette dressing and enjoy a salad as fresh as spring itself.
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Source: Ron Smith (701) 231-8161
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136