A month ago, I blogged about some of the weeds on our block that I’ve been able to identify so far. At the time, I did say that I was not “not that anti-weed these days”, particularly after reading Peter Andrews’ book ‘Beyond the Brink’, which helped me put their purpose in life into perspective….building soil fertility, reducing erosion etc.
Self-Sufficiency by Isabell Shipard
I received a comment in response to that post, pointing out that Isabell Shipard has written that Cobbler’s Pegs (a widely loathed weed) are actually edible. As chance would happen, I had Isabell’s book ‘Self-Sufficiency’ out on loan from the local library at the time.
I tend to do that…order all these fantastic books in, and then struggle to find the time to really delve into them before the 4 weeks are up.
Point is, that I’ve spend a little more time with Isabell, well, her book at least, and guess what…..Cobbler’s Pegs are not the only edible weed.
I’m now in the process of separating weeds I’ve found into a list of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. That’s not to say that the ‘bad guys’ don’t have their place, but the good guys have the added benefit of supplying free and nutritious food to the chickens.
So here are the first 3 weeds that have been selected as ‘good guys’ by randomplantings.
Swamp Dock
Dandelion
Cobbler's Pegs
& the chickens love ‘em!
before
after
Hi James! I haven’t tried feeding weeds to my chicks yet. You better believe I will now. I am waiting a few more weeks before I let them out to free range. They need to be the size to take on a cat if need be. They love any treats I bring them so they ought to be smitten with dandelions. I wonder if chicory is on that list?
Heather
Heather – I don’t think we have chicory growing wild over here.
From speed reading this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory, it looks like it could be good for chickens but I would run it by some others before trying it out on them.