Mowing the Murnong: a tribute to Doris Pozzi & her book on edible weeds

An exploration of weeds and the useful plants that they often are…

Its been a relatively wet year so many of our plants are experiencing growth we haven’t seen for a while, and while we gardeners are rejoicing on one hand, on the other we are watching with dismay the growth of those ‘other’ plants, those unwanted plants we call ‘weeds’.

Weeding as an activity brings out the black and white in us, the right or wrong – there are no shades of grey in weeding. They generally are the successfully competitive plants – they are outgrowing, overshading and/or smothering the other plants around them and we must intervene to bring our plant community back into balance.

It is useful to keep finding new inspirations for getting in and weeding out so it is worth asking whether you can actually identify what that plant is that you are pulling and digging out so vehemently, so righteously.

Gardening practices are a constant process of inclusion and exclusion in the way we work with our plants. You can come in, you can stay, and you can go. I’m happy to admit that my preference is for including plants that I have declared are both beautiful and useful.

Living on a partially cleared bush block has turned my eye to indigenous plants and their possibilities. I realised I knew nothing about the greenery that was growing around me and so have started to learn about and identify different plants. While it’s easy to decide what is beautiful, it’s a little harder to find out what plants might be edible or useful in some other way.

Some research into ‘bush’ and ‘wild’ foods has led to some interesting revelations about what groundcovers, herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees around us are edible. All of these understandings spring initially from European recordings of indigenous usage of plants and then what early settlers discovered that they could harvest and eat.

It has been startling to realise that some of the things I have been weeding and feeding to the chooks  – I could have been harvesting – the teas I could have been drinking, the salads I could have been eating after a good days gardening!

As I researched ‘bush’ foods I kept reading about this plant called Murnong or Yam daisy Microseris ssp. lanceolata which was well recorded as a staple food of many Aboriginal communities and was grazed out. I got such a shock when I googled an image for it – was this was the daisy Mum and Dad spent hours pulling out of our 60’s manicured lawn when I was a child?

While roaming around my childhood garden, climbing and eating out of fruit trees I was quite possibly walking over a very useful plant and we just didn’t know it. Then I looked into edible plants just from the daisy family and I discovered Dandelion, Catsears, Prickly Lettuce, Chicory, Salsify, Cow Thistle – and realised that Murnong is very like Catsears Hypochoeris radicata,  – I’ll have to get out there and have another look at all my daisies….

When discovering and harvesting weeds careful identification is needed, as some plants are toxic with overuse, or require further preparation. Also many need to be harvested at the right time.  Leaves are often best early, tubers need to be left to grow, seeds need to drop from their trees.

I was truly disappointed on trying Angled Onion Allium triquetrum – which had been suggested as a substitute for Spring Onion – it was so bitter. As its one of the most prolific weeds in my broader landscape I had been hoping to start a campaign to get people weeding and eating but alas I’m assuming that unless you get it really early it’s not coming to your table as a salad soon.

This is the challenge with many of these plants – they don’t really stand a chance against many of our cultivar vegetables and herbs (which I guess started out as spontaneous weeds) – but if you see them as a free, low input addition to your culinary options then its worth learning about. Some though, for example Dandelion  Taraxacum officinale have long histories of medicinal usage as both tea and coffee and are worth developing an eye for and an ability to differentiate from other daisies.

I encourage you to do some research into edible weeds and plants, and if nothing else you may have the opportunity to munch on something nutritious as you take them out…..the feed and weed principle of fun gardening.