More about Dandelions

Dandelion Fireworks-PHOTO 183-The halfway mark by aussiegall

TheGardenLady enjoyed Christy Baker’s guest post about dandelions that is on TheGardenLady blog. I hope the readers liked reading it, too.

Growing up on a truck farm, I am proud to report that the adjacent town to my town is known today as the dandelion capital of the world. Even the New York Times had an interesting article about Dandelion growing in Vineland, NJ.

Because dandelions were so prevalent, I always wanted to try a recipe for dandelion wine. Obviously lawns, when I was growing up, were not so pristine as they are these days. No one, that I knew, used any herbicides to kill dandelions. They may have been considered weeds even then. I can’t remember, but we children always loved them and loved blowing on the seed heads, dispersing more seeds to turn into yet more dandelions. And the flowers and leaves were always healthy to eat.

Wine recipes always read as an easy wine to make.  But I never tried. However, we had the dandelion leaves for salad.  No one that I knew ever heard of arugela in those days for the bitter green in a salad.

Someone observed that the healthiest diet is the one poor people had to eat in the old days. So consider adding dandelion greens to your diet for health reasons as well as a more diverse green palatte in the salad bowl.