Turkey Hill Farm, VT: Dandelion Season

Growing up on the family farm in Northfield, dandelion season was especially memorable. My aunt would frequently come to the farm to dig dandelions with us. She and my mother had a favorite corner of the pasture that grew nice big easy-to-clean greens. I hold their images and that spot in my mind when I think back to springtime as a child. It seemed like we subsisted on dandelion greens. We ate them all spring and my mother put by box after box of them for eating during the winter months. I’m actually surprised that I still anxiously look forward to eating them each spring just as she prepared them.

My mother was my true inspiration for my appreciation of wild edibles. For us it was a way of life. When I was small, she and I would walk to what we called the back pasture. At the time it was our heifer pasture. It was a magical place—an open rolling pasture surrounded by woods. There were two islands of trees in the middle of the open meadow that I loved to explore.

It was late June and wild strawberry time. Mother commonly made a simple yellow cake called a busy day cake that she topped with a fluffy eggwhite frosting, but this time of the year the frosting came alive with the addition of a cup of wild strawberries. The flavor of a wild strawberry is different from that of our cultivated varieties. If you have ever tried picking wild strawberries, you probably know that it takes a lot of them to fill a cup, but this seasonal ritual was worth the time we spent. What a wonderful time we had! As we picked the tiny red berries the sunshine warmed our backs, and the scent of heifers and June grass surrounded our senses.

My mother was an avid gardener and believed in organic gardening way before most gardeners of her time gave it much consideration. She and my father grew a huge garden that fed us throughout the long winter months. My mother especially appreciated the wild greens and wild edibles that she did not have to spend time growing and cultivating. These plants were essentially free for the harvesting and saved our family time, space and money.

Now that we have a large garden to care for, I appreciate her feelings all the more. Lamb’s quarter is one of my favorite wild edibles—a very nutritious, delicately flavored tender green. Instead of growing rows of spinach that quickly bolt as soon as the weather gets hot, I harvest abundant lamb’s quarter that grows as a weed throughout the gardening season.