THE FEAR OF ABUNDANCE SYNDROME
by Robin Wheeler, Owner, Edible Landscapes

Like most people visiting Asia, I have experienced the constant dripping of a rain of epiphanies during my stays. My favourite one on the last trip occurred at the edge of a new friend’s yard. I admired the grove of towering bamboo that edged her garden boundary, in a row so straight I could have marked it off with a piece of thread, with not a single trace of bamboo growing out into the road. “How do you do that?” I asked her, “How do you keep the bamboo from growing all over the place, outside of your yard?” “Well, that’s easy,” she said. “Everyone knows how good bamboo shoots are in their dinner – the minute one shows its head outside of my garden, someone takes it home.” “Oh,” I said, “In Canada, we hack down the bamboo and throw it in bushes, and buy bamboo shoots in a can at the store”.

But that is what North American culture is all about. We have been trained that if it is right in front of our face (i.e. free, accessible) it is somehow inferior, and that the only really good stuff is at the store. And that the more abundantly and freely something grows, the more reviled it should be.

Bamboo is just one example. I wonder if people would treat it with more respect if they knew that they could learn to peel and boil those shoots. Bamboo would no longer seem “invasive”; it would become a treat, instead. And Kudzu – long hated in the Southern U.S. is another good example. Years ago, this plant was established by the new Asian population as a survival plant – the starchy roots grow easily and are very digestible, the young leaves, flowers and unripe pods are edible cooked or raw, and older leaves are used in tea. This is also a fodder plant. And the Asians also knew that Kudzu was an ancient Chinese medicine (Ge Gen) and used extensively for many conditions – including alcoholism. But it’s just another noxious weed now, since no one keeps it at bay by eating the roots, and people can’t get rid of it fast enough to drink their beer and eat their Twinkies in peace.

North Americans are also famous for ripping out “weeds” such as huckleberry and salal – plants absolutely adapted to our climate - so that they have somewhere to put nice pots of petunias – but you can’t eat petunias. And we all know about the infamous scourge, the Himalayan blackberry. A friend pointed out that if there was something worth smoking in blackberry roots, there wouldn’t be a plant left standing in three weeks. But while he’s out there, puffing tentatively away in the back yard, we can eat, freeze and make wine out of the tons of berries that come off these plants each year.

And peppermint and lemon balm always come with a warning to keep them contained or they will run amok, which is just proof that someone isn’t drinking enough locally picked herb tea.

And those orange day lilies, the ones considered “common”, that seem to need thinning and composting each year? Might be time to just eat them! I can’t wait for the flowers to begin folding up in the evening, so I can chop them into a salad (although I hear they’re nice fried, too), and this year I might have enough plants to try eating the young shoots and roots. And that crazy chickweed? I find the taste a bit grassy for me, but still throw some into a mixed salad for all those free nutrients. I pick some wood sorrel and lamb’s quarters while I’m out there.

If you’re curious about taking advantage of that tiny over abundance problem that seems to be facing you in your own back yards, go visit your library or bookstore and pick something up on wild foods. Get your hands on a copy of The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America (Keat’s publishing). Buy a copy of Plants of Coastal British Columbia (Lone Pine Press) and take it on every walk. Strip and taste a stem of salmonberry. Dig and dry some dandelion root chunks, and throw them in your coffee grinder with your morning beans. Have a gentle epiphany about the abundance of healthy food in the face of multinational takeover. Have no fear. Just spend a little more time thinking about that stuff before you throw it in the bushes.

Robin Wheeler is the owner of Edible Landscaping and author of the Gardening Book Gardening for the Faint of Heart, and munches the odd bit of violet, miner’s lettuce and corn salad on the way to her compost bin.