An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

Art

Never heard them called 'silvertops', but odds are she was talking about
lambsquarters, aka Chenopodium album.
See: http://www.wssa.net/subpages/weed/la...squarters.html or
http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/cheal.htm
and take a look at the nutritional information:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-001-02s01wl.html

I used to eat them when I was a young and had no money; as I recall, they
were rather tasty.

Cheers,
Sue

--



"AJP" wrote in message
...
An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

Art

"AJP" wrote in message
...
An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

Art

It sounds a whole lot like lamb's quarters.

http://www.cloudnet.com/~djeans/FlwP...bs-quarter.htm

http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/weedguid/lambsqua.htm

http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordL...s/lambs_quarte
rs.htm

http://www.gov.on.ca/OMAFRA/english/...ambs_quarters.
htm


The seeds are good to eat, too. Also, unlike many green, they don't get
bitter or tough with age.


Ray Drouillard
(who often has better weeds than garden plants)

"AJP" wrote:

An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

If the other folks are correct -- and I think they probably are-
you're in for a treat with Lambs Quarters. I used to have them
as a pernicious weed in my garden, but I seem to have ammended my soil
& eaten them into oblivion. Now I have to look for them.

I'm surprised they aren't cultivated - at least I've never seen seeds
for sale. They are good raw in salads or wilted in a steam bath for
a minute or so. I prefer mine with a dab of butter & what must be a
companion plant/weed as I find them together often-- Purslane.
http://landscaping.about.com/cs/weed...a/purslane.htm
[I just learned that Purslane has Omega 3 fatty acids as well as its
concentration of Vit. C]

Purslane is more of an acquired taste-- it has a mucilaginous texture
and an almost citric flavor. [the above site calls it peppery. . .
I'll have to think about that next time I see some] But it goes well
with the very muted flavor of the lambs quarters.

Either are good by themselves.

Jim

"Jim Elbrecht" wrote in message
...
"AJP" wrote:

An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

If the other folks are correct -- and I think they probably are-
you're in for a treat with Lambs Quarters. I used to have them
as a pernicious weed in my garden, but I seem to have ammended my soil
& eaten them into oblivion. Now I have to look for them.

I'm surprised they aren't cultivated - at least I've never seen seeds
for sale. They are good raw in salads or wilted in a steam bath for
a minute or so. I prefer mine with a dab of butter & what must be a
companion plant/weed as I find them together often-- Purslane.
http://landscaping.about.com/cs/weed...a/purslane.htm
[I just learned that Purslane has Omega 3 fatty acids as well as its
concentration of Vit. C]

Purslane is more of an acquired taste-- it has a mucilaginous texture
and an almost citric flavor. [the above site calls it peppery. . .
I'll have to think about that next time I see some] But it goes well
with the very muted flavor of the lambs quarters.

Either are good by themselves.

Jim

Purslane actually was brought over as a cultivated plant -- by the
French, IIRC.

I like my lamb's quarters and purslane steamed. I generally add a
little salt and pepper vinegar [1].


Ray Drouillard

[1] I like to soak cayenne peppers in basalmic vinegar and use the
vinegar. When the bottle gets a little low, I add more vinegar. After
a few cycles of that, I dump the whole mess into the blender and make
hot sauce.

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 11:53:28 GMT, Jim Elbrecht
wrote:

"AJP" wrote:

An elderly lady was telling me she would make some good greens from
weeds that grew NEAR the garden.

They called them silvertops, and tasted sort of like spinach, but a
little more tender.

Does anybody know what this plant was??

If the other folks are correct -- and I think they probably are-
you're in for a treat with Lambs Quarters. I used to have them
as a pernicious weed in my garden, but I seem to have ammended my soil
& eaten them into oblivion. Now I have to look for them.

You could always plant some seed from a plant you like, start
selectively saving seed ;-)

I haven't seen much of those in my yard lately either, but I have an
unlimited supply of red root pigweed! I'd even seen seed for that for
sale along with the dandelions. No shortage of either in my yard! LOL

I wanted to grow some amaranth..of a more cultivated sort, but I
figured it would be diseased here because one year I had some red root
pig weed here where the backs of the leaves were covered with a very
cottony fungus..not just a few.. all of them! Wasn't an insect
infestation. I didn't spend time figuring out what it was as I was
busy pulling them all out of the driveway, just thought it very odd.
Never saw it after that, so I'm going to try some other amaranth this
year if I can get it planted. My garden help has deserted me!

I'm surprised they aren't cultivated - at least I've never seen seeds
for sale. They are good raw in salads or wilted in a steam bath for
a minute or so. I prefer mine with a dab of butter & what must be a
companion plant/weed as I find them together often-- Purslane.
http://landscaping.about.com/cs/weed...a/purslane.htm
[I just learned that Purslane has Omega 3 fatty acids as well as its
concentration of Vit. C]

Purslane like my driveway. I had them growing among the moss rose too
... since they both liked the same sort of growing conditions. There
are some purslane that have been developed as ornamentals now.. I
think I saw some 2 or 3 years ago in a seed catalog.

Janice

Purslane is more of an acquired taste-- it has a mucilaginous texture
and an almost citric flavor. [the above site calls it peppery. . .
I'll have to think about that next time I see some] But it goes well
with the very muted flavor of the lambs quarters.

Either are good by themselves.

Jim