Seattle Tours

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Even before you think to start looking for the first flowers of spring, they are in your backyard, quietly pushing through their green fuses. Around Seattle, it appears to me that there are three very common (yet dimunitive) garden weeds that anticipate spring even before the native indian plum. These are bittercress (Cardamine), dead-nettle (Lamium), and chickweed (Stellaria) . These are all in bloom by February, and could show up in January some years. There might be other weeds that also bloom early, but none have the ubiquity of these three. Happily, all three are edible, though they are often discarded by overzealous gardeners as they clear out their garden beds for more conventional food-plants.

Lamium purpureum, or purple (red) dead-nettle, is shown below in a garden in the central district. It is the least yummy of the three, with a dirty, earthy taste. It is a member of the mint family and has the typical bilabiate flowers.


















Stellaria media, or common chickweed, is extremely widespread. Chickens love to dine on it, hence the name. If you can't eat it all in your early spring salads, throw it to some hens (if any are dwelling nearby). It is a member of the pink family and has 5 white petals that are so deeply lobed that they might appear as 10 separate petals.

















Cardamine oligosperma (little western bittercress) is found throughout seattle in gardens and waste places -- a hardy bugger. There might be other lookalike species of the same genus, but this is the one i think is most common. They have a typical mustardy rosette of pinnately lobed leaves, and small white flowers only about three millimeters across (four petals). They have a spicy mustard taste, and you can eat the whole plant, even the skinny seed pods.