Sheep Sorrel

Fall has brought on a bout of wild plant enthusiasm. I just found out about and ordered Samuel Thayer's DVD on edible wild plant foraging (ha, guess that's one documentary off my to-do list!). I was watching it this past Saturday, and then went out to clean up the garden a bit. I was looking at a plant growing all over the place with very distinctly spearhead-shaped leaves, and I realized that had definitely been in the video I was watching.



Didn't take long to find the segment about Sheep Sorrel, Rumex acetosella. Apparently I made it through childhood never knowing about this one (cheeseweed was my childhood weed of choice). I was so excited, I plucked a few leaves and one by one, accosted the family and made them try it.

Husband: "Uh, no, not right now, thanks."
Maddy, 5 years old: "I don't want to!" Me: "Oh, come on!" Her: "OK..." She took a nibble and dropped the leaf into her water. I told her that was a good idea, she could make lemonade that way, and she beamed.
Colin, 3 years old, tried one. Then asked for another, and the remaining few I had in my hand.

Colin is more like me than anyone else in the family. His sister is very take-charge and fearless. Colin is more laid-back. When we all go on nature walks, Maddy and her Dad are soon way ahead of us. Colin and I lag behind, taking it slow and looking at mushrooms. So if anyone is going to be my foraging protege, it's him.

A few minutes later, he actually asked if we could go out and get some more "lemon leaves." I could hardly contain my delight. I took him over to the garden, and showed him the plant, and how to pinch off the leaves. We moved from patch to patch, because there really was a lot of it, I've probably pulled dozens of them from the garden when weeding and not even realized it was edible, and as we went, he got better about identifying the plant. He even pointed out a leaf where the two base spikey ends weren't symmetrical, questioning me about it. So proud!

After half an hour or so, we came inside with two small containers of sheep sorrel leaves, which he plopped down on the couch with and began to snack on.



His first foraging expedition! Unless you count the acorns last weekend, and I'm sure the kids don't. We'll talk about those later. I still have about a cup of the boiled meats sitting around.