Fruit & Vegetables A Beginners Guide to Edible Weeds

Foraging is as ancient as humanity, having been with us as long as weeds have. From the very beginning of every civilisation's memory, written or oral, people had to figure out what was edible, nutritious, desirable, medicinal and just plain old aesthetic (pretty). Culinary traditions inevitably developed from this basic element of human inquisitiveness, and we have the thousands, if not millions, of bold, intrepid survivalists to thank who tried, and survived, the myriad of edible plants, fruits and fungi the archives of knowledge now present to us in such an easily accessible form such as this.

Foraging Gear

The forager's essential kit should almost always include the following, unless you are a reliably close distance to home or edible weeding your own garden:

• A backpack, preferably also containing a raincoat, jumper, water bottle, sunscreen, insect repellent, snacks and, where permissible, ammunition for your daily carry.
• Excellent footwear (gumboots/wellingtons are great, as are my old army boots)
• Trousers, even in summer
• A hat
• Gardening gloves for the prickly ones
• A pocket knife or multi-tool (and, where permitted, your concealed carry)
• A digging stick or garden trowel (digging sticks can always be acquired on site and discarded after use, unlike heavier steel implements)
• A basket, bucket or bag to carry your treasures home.

There's probably more, but these are the essentials if you intend to travel more than a comfortable walking distance from home, especially if it involves a road trip somewhere new.

Foraging Risks

Foraging for weeds comes with inevitable risks. Lookalikes, poisonous or otherwise, are an ever-present threat to the novice forager. Location of harvest is also important. Some plants, especially weedy plants, excel at drawing out heavy metals and other environmental toxins from the soil and store it in their leaves, stems, fruits and roots. Foraging within 100m (100 yards) of a busy road, i.e. anything more than a quiet back-street, especially roads frequented regularly by diesel vehicles, is ill advised for this reason. Historical spills of dangerous chemicals may also have occurred in an area unbeknownst to the casual forager, tainting both soil and waterways; only detailed local knowledge will comprehend such crucial details. Lastly, local councils and county governments are wont to spray carcinogenic herbicides like glyphosate on everything in every park or pavement deemed 'weed', native or not, just because it's growing in some unsightly place, leaving a permanent toxic legacy in their wake. Being aware of these local poisoning schedules can make the difference between a nutritious foraging experience and a trip to the oncologist.

There are, of course, other risks than these. Foraging for edible weeds may take the intrepid gourmet to some precarious locations: cliff edges, waterfalls, swamps, beaches, roadside kerbs, crocodile-infested billabongs, mother-in-law's vegetable patch, etc. Being attentive to one's surroundings, despite the excitement of spotting a favourite, is always recommended. In some places, wildlife may pose a danger. Australia may be free of bears, wolves and lions, but we have a large number of poisonous snakes and spiders that call the scrub home, and the aforementioned crocs in the tropics. I personally cannot recall a foraging experience where I have not brought home at least one spider amidst my haul of loot (usually tiny ones, as small as a full stop, but once I brought home a moderately sized ogre-faced spider who now lives on my balcony). Other places may get extremely hot, extremely cold, extremely windy or extremely stormy at a moment's notice. Taking the time to plan and call off an outing in bad weather is still wise advice. Even better is foraging with an experienced guide who knows what they're doing and where they're going.

Lastly, make sure you know how to prepare your fare. Many common edible weeds are high in oxalic acid, a naturally-occurring plant chemical that readily binds to ionic elements in the blood, especially calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc and manganese, potentially resulting in nutritional deficiencies, bone degeneration and kidney stones. But a 1 or 2 minute blanch (discard the water!) and rinse destroys most of the oxalic acid content in plant material, thus making such items good tucker. Other weeds may cause allergic reactions in some people, e.g. pellitory (asthma plant). I found out only recently that I am horrendously allergic to one or more native Australian grass seeds (I was picking three different ones on the day and I'm not sure which one is the culprit); I shall not be picking them again! Just because you can eat that weed without breaking out in a sudden rash, sneezing fit, waterfall nose or anaphylactic shock doesn't mean your friend sitting at table can too! Remember the flowchart of experimentation:


Try new things with care, and if everything's okay, gusto away! Additionally, many common weeds have poisonous lookalikes or poisonous parts. This makes positive identification the most important component of wild food foraging. If you are not 100% certain you have ticked off every relevant key identifier for your suspected edible, leave it behind. Then you can be next to guaranteed there will be a next time!

A final note for housekeeping: spp. in the botanical (Latin) names or article titles refers to all species in the genus (sp. = species, singular; spp. = species, plural).

Without further ado, let's get to the plants!