This is Japanese knotweed, Polygonum cuspidatum.  For those concerned about invasive species moving into our region, this plant would appear on a short list of major trouble-makers.  Devouring creeksides and roadsides alike, Japanese knotweed is an intense grower.  Just ask anyone who has found it growing somewhere they wished it weren’t.

Those of us however who see plant “invasions” from an alterate perspective, have the opportunity to view this plant differently.  

I would like to suggest that Japanese knotweed is a significantly important plant for this day and age.  It is a powerful warrior whose strength offers much-needed restoration both for our ailing planet, and our precious bodies.

A member of the Buckwheat and Knotweed (Polygonaceae) family, Japanese knotweed shoots up from the ground each spring, with reddish-green coloured spears, the stalks encircled with rings at about 15 cm intervals.  Young leaves hug the stalk, eventually growing outwards as the plant develops.  

In a season, it can grow to over 7 feet tall, with its ringed cane-like stalks resembling bamboo.  These tall stalks remain standing after the entire plant dies back for the winter.  

Showy white flower clusters emerge from the leaf axils from mid-late summer.  Its thick broad leaves have short petioles (stems) and pointed tips.  It grows vigorously on moist soils in partially shaded areas, and alongside moving bodies of water.  

Its deep roots establish themselves with intensity.

I have taken much inspiration from a noteworthy book titled “Invasive Plant Medicine”.  It was written by Timothy Lee Scott, an acupuncturist and herbalist from Vermont.  As you can see by photo on the cover, Scott considers Japanese knotweed to be a particularly important medicinal invasive.  He discusses some of the plant’s bioremedial benefits.  A major one is its ability to thrive in toxic soils.  It takes up heavy metals and poisons without being damaged while most other plants perish under similar conditions.  

Thus it has the capacity to detoxify damaged land.  Now this makes me think…..It thrives in toxic soil.  It’s considered a problematic invasive plant due to resilient growth in the many locations where it establishes itself–despite numerous efforts to erradicate it.  

We must admit that at this point, our earth holds an accumulation of toxic waste.  It is in need of detoxification, and for that matter, so are many of us.  Hmmm…maybe THAT’S why the plant is taking up more and more space here… Some food for thought. 

While it detoxifies, Japanese knotweed also brings organic matter, shade and moisture where it is needed in order to support habitat restoration.  Over time, it revitalizes damaged ecosystems, providing a cleaner and healthier space to support new creatures and plants.  

It is a significant nectar source for honey bees as well as other important pollinators.  You can see a few of them at work in the photos above and below these paragraphs.

On the topic of food and habitat, I should mention that the spring shoots of Japanese knotweed make a delectable vegetable.  They can be cut to the ground when they’re about 1 foot tall (around late May-June in these parts), and pan-cooked like asparagus.  They have a lemony flavour and slippery texture resembling that of cooked okra.  We like to cook them with eggs, mushrooms or scrambled tofu.  They’re also nice as a simple side dish, perhaps cooked with a little garlic and olive oil.  

Spring shoots. Photo courtesy of TP Knotweed Solutions, UK.

Harvesting the shoots cuts back on the plant’s population, so those folks troubled by its invasive nature can take heart that a helpful solution would be to nourish ourselves with it!

This is crucial however:  Many folks have tried (unsuccessfully) to eradicate Japanese knotweed using toxic herbicides.  Therefore, all foragers must be sure to harvest shoots ONLY from patches on clean ground that has not been sprayed.  

(…Bees, may you also be forewarned!)

At this point I must mention some important medicinal properties offered to us by this powerhouse of a plant.

In his famed book “Healing Lyme”, reknowned herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner lists Japanese knotweed as one of the most important herbs in a protocol for fighting Lyme disease–a growing epidemic in our region.

  The roots of the plant are used for medicine,  having a strong immune enhancing capacity.  They are high in vitamin C, and are a major source of resveratrol which supports blood vessel health and circulation while reducing inflammation, oxidation and blood coagulation.  This helps carry the immune cells through the bloodsteam, even to hard-to-reach areas where the Lyme bacteria tend to hide out in the system and cause problems (such as the joints, eyes, skin and heart).

The roots are significantly antimicrobial and antifungal, helping to fight off many nasty infections including staph, strep, pneumonia, e-coli, salmonella and candida albicans (to name a few).

I have to say that I am so glad we have access to this very helpful medicine at a time when we need it.  We don’t need to be cautious of overharvesting this plant, as there is more than enough for us to use.  

I believe that if we keep paying attention, we’ll probably learn much more about what Japanese knotweed can do for us, and what it’s already doing for the earth.

I write this on the day of the harvest moon.  Today there will be an eclipse of the full moon as we approach the Autumnal Equinox.

This season of harvest, I am feeling particularly grateful.  Despite the loss of garden produce due to the summer’s drought, there are harvest gifts to be found in abundance this season.  Today I would like to speak about apples.

We have a couple of apple trees, reportedly close to 90 years old.  They’ve been pruned and cared for over the years.  These days however they don’t reliably produce large, abundant apples every year.  

This year though, we have the motherlode! And as I travel around the County, I find trees everywhere dripping with the fruit.  This is the second year in a row with an apple boom in Prince Edward County.

This drives me to expound here on a few reasons why I appreciate the apple tree and all it has to give.

Apples, one of the many sweet and sour fruits belonging to the Rose (Rosaceae) family, are both nourishing and cleansing.  

A good source of fibre, potassium and Vitamin C, apples help to clean out the blood vessels as well as the intestines.  They can reduce plaque build-up and cholesterol in the arteries, supporting  heart health while also encouraging good, clean digestion.  Apples can also help to cleanse and protect the lungs from inhaled pollutants.  As a cooling fruit, rich in anti-oxidants, apples help to reduce inflammation throughout the body, encouraging less pain, more energy and generally uplifted spirits.

Recently I was fortunate enough to participate in the Killaloe Herb Gathering. There I listened to an inspiring presentation by Robbie Anderman on the medicinal virtues of various trees that grow in this part of the world–something he has studied for over 30 years.  In Robbie’s  presentation, I learned that the bark of the apple tree can serve as an exceptional remedy for gastritis or acid reflux.  

When I think about it, this makes sense to me.  Apples and their Rose-family cousins have marked astringent properties.  This means that they help to bind and tighten tissues that may be too loose or “boggy”.  In the case of acid reflux, what often seems to happen is that the esophageal sphincter (the valve between the stomach and esophagus) loses its tone.  This loosened valve then fails to do its job of keeping stomach acid safely in the stomach and out of the esophagus, where it causes a painful burning sensation and eventual damage.   

A helpful fix here would be a substance with enough astringency to tighten up the tissues of the esophageal sphincter and prevent leakage of stomach acid.  This is what apple bark seems to successfully achieve.     

To use apple for this purpose, I would shave the bark off of pruned branches with a knife.  I would then simmer the bark (either fresh or dried), using about 1 teaspoon of broken up bark to 1 cup of water, for at least ten minutes.  Then drink 1-3 cups of the tea daily as needed.  

For many years now, I have been preserving apples by making apple butter.

To do this, I grate apples to cover the bottom of a tall pot, a few centimetres thick.  I sprinkle salt on this, and then fill the rest of the pot with sliced apples.  Left to simmer for 20-30 hours, stirring occasionally, the apples soften and the moisture evapourates, leaving a sweet buttery paste.  This can be canned and used as a sugar substitute in baking, or just spread on toast or hot cereal.  You can also spread it onto a baking sheet and place it in the oven at low heat until it dries up further, yielding fruit leather–yum!  Apple butter will store for years in a pantry when sealed, and for months in the refrigerator once opened.

 With their long winter storing ability, apples are a perfect locally grown fruit to be enjoyed fresh, even when the ground is frozen and the trees are bare.

Thoughts of winter and apples remind me of a special apple experience I had that I would like to share here…

Last year, a few days after the winter solstice, the moon was full and I went for a short walk on a fairly warm christmas eve.  As the sun set into the peace if the evening, I watched the moon rise over our pond, reflecting its light in the water.  

It made me feel grateful for being present in the magic of that particular moment.  Wanting to capture it, I took the photo above.  I also became inspired to think of the many things for which I was grateful in life.  On this gratitude list were those giving apple trees which had provided so abundantly for us last fall (and little did I know then, they would bring us another bumper crop again this year–“my cup runneth over!”)  

Compelled to express my gratitude, I walked down to visit the two apple trees, ready to give thanks in person.  What I found there was another gift!  On the ground, all around both trees were an abundance of newly-fallen apples, large, firm and nearly flawless!  They had been kept cool in the December weather, but well insulated in the long grass where they lay, and they were ready to be gathered!  I dare say the greatest thanks I could give those trees at that moment was to gather the gift of yet more apples, my heart expansive and joyful, under that majestic full moon of winter solstice.

Christmas Apples

 Well gather them I did.  I gleefully brought them into the house to share.  From that evening onwards, they became known as our Christmas Apples. They kept well, and we were nourished by them throughout much of the winter.

Apple is a bringer of beauty, sweetness and celebration.  It brings protection and cleansing along with good nourishment.  And it shares many of its qualities with its ancient cousin, the bearer of small red pomes for the heart, and the namesake of my herbal practice…Hawthorn.

This season, apple offers its gifts freely.  As the moon swells, may we all be  sweetened with gratitude, harvesting the generous gifts brought to us by our apples.

I feel it’s time to speak about a plant that has become much maligned in these parts:  The wild parsnip.  On plant identification walks, inevitably someone will ask me to identify wild parsnip because they have heard something about it–usually in the form of a warning.  So in this post, I will speak about all that wild parsnip has to offer, in addition to the challenges we can encounter with it.

Pastinaca sativa is the yellow-flowered carrot family plant that lines roadsides, sunny trails and abandoned fields.

As it is not native to this area, and as it grows so abundantly, it is considered an invasive plant.  It is feared and despised by many, not only because it is considered invasive, but because if it is handled a certain way, this plant can cause severe burning to the skin and potentially the eyes if touched by the juice on the skin. 

This burning can happen when the stem or leaf of the plant is broken, releasing its juice or sap onto the skin.  IF this sap touches the skin while under bright sunlight, it causes a photosensitivity that brings on a severe burn from sun exposure.  The burn can cause blistering and intense pain, as well as increased sensitivity to future sunlight exposure.  

Therefore, it is important to recognize wild parsnip, and to avoid allowing the broken plant to touch your skin while you’re out in the sunlight.  If you accidentally get the sap on your skin however, the burn can still be prevented by washing the exposed area with soap and water immediately after exposure, and keeping it out of the sunlight.

Wild parsnip has the typical umbel of flowers characteristic of plants in its family, the Umbelliferae or Carrot Family.  Its yellow flowers resemble those of dill plants.  However, as you can see in these photos, its leaves are quite different from those of dill.  They have much wider blades, and toothed edges.  They grow in paired (opposite) leaflets along a main stem, with one leaflet at the tip.  Some of these pictures also show wild grape leaves growing among the parsnip.  These leaves are wide and palm-shaped like maple leaves–so do not confuse them for the parnsip leaves which are not palm-shaped but grow in leaflets.

If you have ever seen parsnip growing in a garden, you can recognize it growing in the wild.  The reason for this is that wild parsnip is EXACTLY the same plant as cultivated parsnip.  Absolutely no difference!  Therefore, you must be equally careful not to get the sap of the broken garden plant on your skin when in the sunlight.  

This also means however, that yes! you can dig the roots of wild parsnip, and you will find yourself delicious tap roots, ready to be cooked and enjoyed, just as you would garden parnsip roots!  The only difference is that the wild parsnips may be a bit smaller than garden parsnip because they often grow in compacted, uncultivated soil.    However, it is of course only the sap in the above-ground portion of the plant that can cause burning, and only when touching the skin in bright sunlight.  The root is entirely safe to touch, slice and eat.

…And if wild parsnip is an invasive plant whose proliferation we want to prevent, what better way to do this than by digging up its roots and eating them?

Roots are harvested with best results from first-year plants.  Parsnip is a biennial plant.  In its second year, it shoots up its yellow flowering stalk and sets seeds, making the roots woodier and less desirable to eat.  But in its first year, it grows only leaves right up out of the root in the ground, and does not develop a flowering stalk.  At this first-year stage, the root is rich, juicy and full of nutrients.  When harvested, it will be tender and delicious.

If you enjoy eating wild parsnip roots, you may also want to collect some of the seeds off wild plants in the fall, and plant them in your garden.  They will produce parsnip plants, just like the ones we grow in our gardens.  If you do this, you will also be helping to prevent the wild proliferation of parsnip, while planting it somewhere from which the roots can be harvested in the plant’s first year, before it goes to seed.  You see, parnsip is so efficient at growing and spreading its seeds that our cultivated parsnip easily escapes cultivation.  It has been seeding itself all over the place in abundance, and becoming deemed “invasive” in the process.

Another important point about these “invasive plants” however is that they not only provide us with large quantities of edible roots, they also seem to be providing an important food source to many of our key pollinators.

In addition to the pollinators caught here on camera, I found three different kinds of bees all over the flowering parsnips in our field a couple weeks ago.  I wish I’d photographed that!

In my opinion, wild parsnip has much to offer us, despite its potential for causing burns to the skin, and despite the fact that it was not already growing here when the European colonists arrived in North America.  If we call wild parsnip invasive, we must keep in mind that many of the plants we find around here are invasive as well–but if we’re crafty about it, we can make use of them as food and medicine.  Some examples are dandelion, chicory, wild carrot (a cousin of parsnip), burdock, plantain and many of our clovers.  

With that in mind, I should note that one of our native plants that grows in great abundance around here is also very damaging to the skin–poison ivy.  It too has a role to play in our ecosystem and it has been growing here much longer than we have.  However, it is paramount for us to be able to identify poison ivy if we don’t want to get a rash from touching it. 

poison ivy

It can be said that plants like poision ivy and wild parsnip have something important to teach us.  They help us to remember the importance of being aware, and paying attention to our environment.  We must be attuned to where the poison ivy is, and be careful not to touch it.  Similarly, we must recognize wild parsnip, and avoid touching our skin to its broken leaves or stems when out in the sunlight (NB: this means also being aware of  touching freshly-mowed parsnip that is still bleeding its sap).  

The necessity for this awareness helps to keep us grounded in the present moment, instead of being caught up in screen time or human thought meanderings.  The presence of these plants helps us to remember, and appreciate where we are as we move through nature and the cycles of the seasons.

It’s the summer of 2016 in Prince Edward County.  In the last 6 weeks we’ve had maybe 20 mm of rain.  We are in the midst of a major drought, and there doesn’t seem to be much indicating it will let up in the near future.  Occasionally we get some promising-looking dark clouds overhead but they hardly ever break into a downpour.  In the County we often find that the lake blows clouds right over our little island, and they break into rain somewhere further north, leaving the land here dry and parched as before.

Growing a garden under these conditions is challenging, to say the least!  In our gardens, some of the heat-loving, dry-tolerant plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are managing with little water so far.

 However, our lovingly-planted peas and lettuce have shrivelled up to almost nothing.  Meanwhile, due to the limited supply of thriving greenery around, the rabbits and other creatures have been taking advantage of our garden goods more than usual..

Although this can be disappointing and frustrating, I am finding it to be an interesting challenge and learning experience.  Having to subsist on little water ourselves has made us feel exceptionally grateful for any water that we use.  

Looking around, I notice that while some plants and trees are struggling or dying back early (like the poor dried up goldenrod in the photo at the top of this post) others are actually thriving under these conditions.  These are the ones making themselves available as food and medicine right now, offering us what we need most at this place and time.

A fine example of this is the wild grape vine.  These big lush green leaves do not usually look so healthy and vibrant by late July.  This year however, they are strong and abundant.  Many of them are carrying motherlodes of maturing fruit, promising to bring sweet sustenance as late summer approaches.

Dolmades

For now, we are enjoying the sustenance of their thriving green leaves.  We’ve been cooking them into our meals, and preparing the delicious middle eastern-style dolmades (vine leaf rolls, stuffed with rice and vegetables).  Grape leaves provide a tremendous source of vitamins A & C, calcium, magnesium and iron, packing a bigger punch of nutritents than most cultivated produce.

The ability to hold water when it’s in low supply also indicates something important about the medicine that grape vines carry.  They are astringent, which means that they help to strengthen and tighten membranes, keeping out infections and supporting healthy tone, especially to skin and blood vessels.  

Another thriving plant in dry weather is the tasty, succulent Purslane

Loaded with alphalinoleic acid (ALA), one of our important omega 3 fatty acids, this plant uses its oils as well as its astringent nature to hold onto water.  It plants itself and survives in dry garden soil and other disturbed areas, helping to soothe, nutrify and moisten the earth where needed.  It is often even found thriving in the cracks of sidewalks and parking lots!  Purslane is a welcome weed in our gardens as it is one of the tastiest wild foods I know.  It has a lemony flavour and a hardy texture which makes it a lovely addition to cucumber & tomato salads, as well as gazpacho soups.  The whole above-ground plant is edible, markedly nutritious and is delicious raw, cooked or pickled.

Other greens we’ve been enjoying this summer include the pleasantly bitter Wild Lettuce, cousin of the less-hearty cultivated lettuce varieties.  The cooling leaves make a superb addition to green salads on hot days.

..and then there’s the ever-abundant Lamb’s Quarters.  This is a relative of spinach, having a similar flavour but even higher nutritional value.  It is rich in vitamins A & C, as well as calcium and iron.  It grows throughout our gardens as another welcome weed.  We add the leaves to salads, puree them into pestos, blend them chopped up into green smoothies and cook them just as we would spinach.  Lamb’s quarters can survive on way less water than spinach however, and it seeds itself readily all summer long, helping to cool and nutrify barren patches of garden soil.

Of course, midsummer is wild berry season here in the County.  The sweet, delicious black raspberries seem to be producing some tasty fruit this summer.  We eat them fresh in our cereal and freeze them for later use in smoothies and baking.  Before and after fruiting, the raspberry plants provide mineral-rich leaves which make a tasty nutritious tea that can be safely used as a medicinal (with more properties than I have room to mention here).  This plant is a real generous provider.

While a drought provides challenges for all creatures involved, the value of what can be gleaned from such challenges is immeasurable.  The old adage seems most appropriate here, If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.  

..Well, so far we have indeed survived, and I dare say we do feel stronger and more resilient as we gratefully benefit from the earth’s gifts enveloped in the heat of the summer sun.

Join me at the Prince Edward Public Library Picton Branch for a presentation on easily-cultivated garden herbs and their uses

Tuesday June 7th  5-6 pm

Picton Public Library 208 Main St. Picton

Get some ideas on herbs that you can add to your garden as helpful companion plants and beneficial healing agents

We’ll discuss ways to make best use of your cultivated herbs to support health and nutrition throughout the whole year

This is a Free event, with Donations accepted for the Prince Edward County Community Gardens

I hope to see you there!