By Sally Roth
Sunday, March 15, 2009
You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows after a warm spell like we had last week.
As I walked around my yard on those balmy days, I tried to tell my plants to slow down, but they were having none of it.
They pushed out their leaves, opened their buds and, just like us, said, "Ahhh!"
Some plants that jumped the gun may be looking mighty sad by the time you read this, but there's one rugged individual that will be just fine no matter how wildly the weather swings.
Well, make that a hundred rugged individuals, and their millions of siblings, which are happily growing in backyards all across America.
Take a look at your dandelions, maybe the most successful plant ever.
Dandelion's origins are murky — Eurasia is about as close as it can be pinned down.
But wherever it started out, dandelion didn't stay put for long. It thrives just about everywhere around the world — even in Antarctica.
The chemical companies that make millions selling weedkillers won't agree with me, but those pesky dandelions may turn out to be a good thing.
If times get truly tough, we could be looking at our weeds with new eyes.
Every bit of a dandelion plant is edible. Some parts are downright tasty, and all of it is good for you. Better yet, it's free for the picking.
"Dandelion for supper," my mom would announce to us one morning in early spring.
Knotting a babushka under her chin, she'd pick up her well-worn paring knife and a brown paper bag and go collect the fixings of a feast.
My mom made dandelion the Pennsylvania Dutch way, pouring hot bacon dressing over the greens and adding hard-boiled eggs.
"Good for what ails you," my pop would say, loading up a forkful.
"Cleans the blood," my mom would add.
"Mmmff," we kids would agree. We just knew we liked the mildly bitter taste and the occasional crunch of the tightly closed buds. Not to mention the sweet/sour bacon dressing and sliced eggs.
Country wisdom was right on the money. The leaves have more iron than Popeye's spinach, and they're super-high in calcium and Vitamin A and C.
But the benefits don't stop there.
You can roast the long taproot to grate as a coffee substitute. Just like java, it acts as a diuretic, cleaning the kidneys and liver.
In Canada, the lowly dandelion root is a registered drug.
Some 85 different weedkillers used for "cosmetic purposes" — such as a dandelion-free lawn — have just been banned in Ontario and other parts of Canada because of their toxic effects on people and wildlife.
Herbicide-maker Dow mounted a big campaign against it, but the gutsy government stood up for the health of its people, and on Earth Day, April 22, the law takes effect.
I'll drink to that — with a glass of dandelion wine, of course.
Well, unless I manage to get my hands on a bottle of the Belgian ale called Pissenlit.
Prized by Continental connoisseurs, this dandelion brew gets its name from the French word for the plant: "Pissenlit," which means "wet the bed."
A single dandelion plant can send more than 5,000 seeds a year parachuting on the breeze, so we may as well learn to like them.
Birds already are big fans. If you can let the yellow flowers turn to puffs in your yard, you may see the indigo buntings — which will soon be arriving — zero in on them.
Goldfinches love the seeds, too, and so do white-crowned sparrows.
I'll never get rid of every dandelion, and I wouldn't want to. I need some leaves to go with my bacon dressing, some flowers to teach kids how to curl the split stems in ice water, some seeds to bring in the buntings and a few puffs to make a wish.
Columnist Sally Roth can be reached at sallyrothcolumn@yahoo.com. Responses to e-mails are not guaranteed.
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