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songbird[_2_] · 18-03-2012, 02:04 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible

wrote:
....
I wish I had your problem. I can't get chickweed to join my garden
and have to harvest from friends yards. Here in middle TN, the
chickweed dies quickly in the heat and is gone usually by May - who
knows this year where the tulips started blooming yesterday.

it doesn't last long here either, but while
it grows it smothers out the seedlings. then
once the cool weather returns in the fall it
will start showing up again.

all winter it is under the snow, quite
green. that is how it got so well established
to begin with, because i'd kept the patch
fairly decently clear through the summer
and fall that year. then it snowed and i
thought i was done for the winter. instead
it sprouted and took over several hundred
square feet of space. the next spring it
was trying to smother all my sprouts
before they could get going. i was very
surprised.

I use chickweed in an all purpose salve. It's very good for the skin.
(I also include plantain, yarrow and calendula, sometimes with a bit
of comfrey. Good for just about everything from mosquito bites to dogs
bites to chapped lips.)

almost anything for lip balms will react
with me. plain vasoline has been the least
trouble so far.

songbird