Written by Anne M. Andrews, Portage County Master Gardener Volunteer Intern
Weeds are "plants in the wrong place," but they can provide immense benefits to your garden's health, local wildlife, and even your kitchen. While aggressive invaders still require management, many common weeds actively work to improve your soil, feed essential pollinators, and offer medicinal or nutritional value. Being aware of the benefits of weeds can transform a high-maintenance chore into a cooperative partnership with nature.
The Spring Welcoming Committee
An early "friend" to bloom each year is often the common blue violet. While its heart-shaped leaves can quickly colonize a shady lawn, it serves as a critical early nectar source for bees emerging from winter. Similarly, purple deadnettle and henbit, with their distinctive square stems and tiny purple flowers, provide vital food for pollinators in April when other garden plants are still dormant.
Soil Doctors and Micro-Habitat Heroes
Rather than "stealing" nutrients, many Ohio weeds are busy repairing the ground they grow in. The much maligned dandelion uses its deep taproot to reach far into Northeast Ohio's heavy clay soils. This process breaks up compaction, allowing air and water to reach the roots of your grass. When dandelions die, they leave behind channels for worms and replenish the topsoil with minerals pulled from deep underground.
Even White Clover, once a standard component of American lawn seed mixes, is a natural fertilizer. It "fixes" nitrogen from the air and puts it back into the soil, feeding the grass around it for free. Lawns with clover stay greener during Ohio’s late-summer dry spells without the need for constant watering.
Plantain helps us diagnose poor lawn conditions. It is thriving in my lawn, especially in heavy traffic areas where the soil is compacted and the grass has been damaged by a heavy mower. Now I have learned that I need to give my lawn some nitrogen and adjust its pH with lime, so my grass will better compete with the plantain. Traditional Uses of Plantain
Edible with Medicinal Properties
I eat dandelion greens every spring and even in the summer if I can find tender young plants. The unopened flower bud is the very most delicious part. I steam the above-ground plant minus any yellowed leaves or mature flowers, then add butter or bacon fat and cider vinegar. I like the leaves sauteed or in soups and I’ve made syrup, mead and “dandy burgers” with the flowers which are sweet. Dandelions are said to help regulate blood sugar, which is my concern, but it’s a health food that I really enjoy in the spring. Clover flowers are sweet too, but I generally only munch a few each spring. I use plantain leaf extract in a salve for insect bites and love the relief. If you don’t have a salve, you can chew the leaves and then apply them to the bite.
Please Note: Foraging can be both rewarding and delicious, but safety comes first. Before eating any wild plant, confirm its identity, verify that it is edible, and make sure it has not been treated with pesticides. Wash all foraged plants before consuming them. See the helpful resources included here for more information: Plant Foraging Safety
The Wild Grocery Store
Katrina Blair, in her book "The Wild Wisdom of Weeds" lists thirteen weeds growing in every region across the world, she believes are important: amaranth, chickweed, clover, dandelion, dock, grass, knotweed, lambs quarter, mallow, mustard, plantain, purslane and thistle.
I have already pulled some wild amaranth from my raised beds and put it in my soup this spring. I prefer to grow giant red amaranth from seed I saved because it is so pretty, has more “spinach” to it and has a lot more amaranth seed to use as seeds or flour in baking. My daughter has lots of chickweed in her raised beds in Kansas, so I ate a chickweed salad when I visited in May. The young purslane weeds in my raised beds I am leaving to harvest when they are bigger because they are very high in omega-3 fatty acids which I need more of to fight osteoporosis. I like purslane (leaves, stems and flowers), with its lemony tart flavor, raw in salad, but it can be cooked like spinach. I’ve tasted wild mustards which I find a bit too “hot” raw, but I grow giant red mustard greens which are more productive and find they lose their hotness and become delicious once sauteed with garlic in olive oil. I let the mustard reseed itself, so I get plants every year. I sauteed, without added garlic, the invasive garlic mustard that I removed this spring, as it is highly invasive and it was just as delicious as my commercial mustard greens. Ohioline: Garlic Mustard
I don’t have experience eating dock, grass, knotweed, mallow, or thistle, but since I spend many hours, every year pulling thistles before they can spread by the wind blowing their thistledown, I read Katrina Blair’s advice on how to use thistle and hope to try it. The major use is to enjoy the juice of the stalk after cutting off the prickly and tough outer layer and to start at the more tender flowering end first. The second is to chew the flower which is like chewing gum with the sweetness being greatest at the early stages of chewing.
I’ll close with the weed that I hate the most on my property: poison ivy. The “friend” part about it is that it’s berries are bird food. I have lived at my home for 52 years and across the street, an established poison ivy vine produces many berries that birds eat and spread through their droppings, creating new plants on my acre each year. I need to always wear gloves when I weed and am careful to scrub off any possible oils after weeding
Identify a weed before you pull it. Consider whether it might be an invasive or a native, endangered, common or aggressive. Is it good for foraging, does it have other benefits?
For more information:
Weed Identification and Control
Portage County State Listed Plant Species
Medicinal and Edible Plants of the Great Plains
Foraging Wild Weeds & Seasonal Greens - Herb Society of America
Invasive Plants - Ohio Department of Natural Resources
For more information about edible weeds check out this link: YouTube Edible Wild Plants OSU
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