Bottom is sweet potato leaves, which isn’t that uncommon. Tasted very similar to spinach without the slimyness. In the middle is lolot pepper (piper sarmentosum). Peppery taste up front, gnarly aftertaste when raw, but added a decent spice when cooked. At the top is tamarind leaves. Kept the good sour taste of the fruit, but with less tamarindiness.
Will definitely eat sweet potato and tamarind leaves again. Might not eat the lolot, wasn’t as good.
Is anyone else eating some different or fun leaves off their plants? Or have unusual leafy greens?
I grow and eat a lot of purslane, new Zealand spinach, malabar spinach, I grow orach for early spring greens, sweet potato for summer greens.
lambs quarters are a weed here, some times I can catch them small enough to taste good.
marrow stem and hunger gap kale to fill in the gaps. this year I grew Celtuce, walking stick kale and have put in “Japanese spinach” and another, to test
I try cabbage every year and usually only get one good one out of dozens
spinach bolts fast here. only the shaded and slow bolting lettuce is ok. chard is bolting the week it comes up, but beet leaf chard does better! I get that all summer. nasturtium like these isn’t so uncommon but I love the leaves and the flowers for a topping on any greens dish for decoration
I do grow some collards but, they’re usually moth eaten.
I’ve eaten squash leaves too, mixed in to bulk up greens- and have tried/tasted young mulberry leaf.
I eat lots of weeds here. Also, some things like Curly mallow, leeks, earth chestnut and black salsify that I planted once and just keep eating. It’s pretty much an all you can eat buffet for free organic green leafies.
John S
PDX OR
I grow a mix of various leaf lettuces, some red, some green… in a hot bed starting late fall… continuing all winter and into the late spring May or early June.
I have found that to be the best time to grow them here … there are simply no pest, no bugs, aphids, no caterpillars.
Late May and June the bugs start up… and I stop growing greens for the year.
We normally have fresh greens from October thru May/June… including all the winter months.
My hot bed with incadescent christmas light frost protection… and the kind of harvests we get regularly.
I dont grow spinach anymore… used to and loved it mixed with leaf lettuce… but my wife has low kidney function… and spinach is high in oxilates… which can be hard on the kidneys.
