Medicinal plants and spring herbs harvest collecting calendars, tips and use

Collect wild herbs properly in spring

Does the monotony of iceberg lettuce and tasteless cucumbers hang out to your throat? Do you watch with annoyance, as their garden neighbors make all this disappear in the bio bin, from which a whole family can feed? We will show you which herbs and medicinal plants have season in spring, what you should pay attention to when collecting and what variety of uses there are for the edible wild plants.

contents

• Collect wild herbs properly in spring
• Superfood? Out in the garden
• Edible herbs and medicinal plants in spring - an overview
• Everything sprouts - collect quickly
• chickweed
• Wild garlic - The witches onion
• Giersch
• Spitz and Breitwegerich
• stinging nettle
• dandelion
• daisy
• Healthy and good food

Superfood? Out in the garden

How about instead of going to the supermarket in your own garden, and instead of expensive "superfood" from China, to eat vitamin champagne on your doorstep? Invite your guests to dine in their own garden: salad with dandelion, stinging nettle and chickweed, wild garlic soup, as a main course greed with Gundermann and dandelion root and as a dessert jelly of daisies, woodruff and elderflowers.

In spring many delicious and healthy wild herbs can be collected. (Image: eflstudioart / fotolia.com)

In spring, the plants from their prison awake from frost and push to the surface. Many of these herbs taste good - and this was forgotten between greenhouse tomatoes and oranges from California. Wild herbs are optimal for a healthy diet: On average, they have a multiple of vitamins, minerals and vital substances such as cultivated plants from the greenhouse.

Edible herbs and medicinal plants in spring - an overview

In March, April, May we can collect:

• Gundermann: The leaves taste like a spice
• Young nettles: A vitamin kick for soups, sauces, salads and tea
• Young leaves of the yarrow
• Leaves and flowers of daisy
• dandelion: Leaves and buds
• sorrel: Leaves
• Wild garlic: leaves
  (Warning: Only gather wild garlic if you are one hundred percent sure. He sees the poisonous lily of the valley and autumn timeless deceptively similar. A mix-up can cost your life.)
• garlic Ranke
• watercress
• Shepherd's purse
• brooklime

All of these herbs can be boiled in a vegetable soup, served raw in the salad, quark or yogurt.

For a tea from dried plants are suitable:

• Boy raspberry leaves
• blackberry
• Coltsfoot- and leaves
• woodruff
• poplars: Leaf buttons
• Boy birch leaves
• elderflower
• Leaves of the ribwort
• peppermint leaves
• Leaves and flowers of the hawthorn

Everything sprouts - collect quickly

At the beginning of April the plants sprout everywhere. Many think they can start collecting slowly. In some plants, it is even too early, in others, the season is just beginning. But beware: Some delicacies of healthy cooking you need to reap quickly.

The fresh shoots and young leaves of the small meadow button are wonderful for example. for spring salads, herbal quark or egg dishes. (Image: summersum / fotolia.com)

Cocksfoot herb develops alkaloids with flowering - then you can not collect it anymore. Coltsfoot flowers at low temperatures and fades when it gets warm. You can still harvest the healing leaves, but not the flowers anymore.

Even the meadow button has its best time in April. The small meadow button, the pimpinelle, is suitable for seasoning salads, sauces and soups. It is inseparable from the Frankfurter Grüner Sauce.

chickweed

The chickweed know ornamental bird friends as a vitamin kick for magnificent finches. No wonder the birds love them: it contains vitamin C in huge amounts, as well as expectorants. Outdoor freaks who suffer from iron deficiency can help themselves with chickweed. In addition to iron, it provides potassium.

It tastes sweet, like a mixture of raw corn and peas, so it's great as an addition to desserts and desserts. It contains in addition to the mucilage

• tannins,
• essential oils,
• Flavonoids and
• coumarins.

A high percentage of zinc is probably the reason our ancestors considered them male enhancers. Add to that

• zinc,
• selenium,
• Silica and
• copper.

Wild garlic - The witches onion

The most important active ingredients

Flavonoids / polyphenols have an antioxidant effect and protect the cells. They prevent diseases of the cardiovascular system, slow down inflammation and lower cholesterol levels.

Bitter substances promote the secretion of gastric and bile secretions, ensure good digestion, help to digest fat and relieve the psyche. Mucous substances maintain the mucous membranes in the airways and digestive tract. They slow down toxins, inhibit inflammation and lower cholesterol like blood sugar.

Garlic spinach - Delicious food as medicine

Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) is popularly called garlic spinach, and that's what's true: it's just spice and vegetables. This vital grenade of spring delights us from the middle of March with its leaves. In April, the leeks bloom, and many flavors migrate through the flowers.

Wild garlic can be harvested from March to May, especially in sparse deciduous forests or in shady meadows. (Image: Cora Müller / fotolia.com)

To overcome spring fatigue and to give the body energy after the cold winter, Allium ursinum is ideal.

Wild garlic contains many valuable ingredients such as

• leek oils,
• flavonoids,
• vitamin C,
• potassium,
• manganese,
• Magnesium and
• iron.

As if that was not enough, he also tastes great: like mild garlic, but at the same time with a spicy Beiton. The leek oils are effective against bacteria and fungi.

The active ingredients in the wild garlic purify the blood, drive the urine, dissolve mucus, and its oils counteract arteriosclerosis. The spring herb gives us the opportunity to eat delicious and at the same time to prevent heart attacks such as stroke. It lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

It also helps indirectly to smooth the skin in spring. Bear's garlic promotes detoxification and deacidification as well as digestion, helping the body to tighten the skin.

The krautige plant unfolds its highest healing power end of April to beginning of May.

Wild garlic - Locations

We can easily plant the wild garlic ourselves. The easiest way to get plants in the garden center and use them. Allium ursinum does not need it too sunny, but likes rich humus and moist soil. In nature, it is a forest plant and loves marshy riparian forests. For example, the soil of the Leipzig floodplain forest, formerly the flood plain of Pleiße, Weiße, Elster and Luppe, is white with wild garlic flowers in April, which soak up the air with their spicy fragrance.

Attention: risk of confusion

Wild garlic can easily be confused - with the poison plants Herbstzeitlose, Aronstab, lily of the valley and Salomonsiegel. So if you do not want to bring the devil into your kitchen, you only pick wild garlic if you're absolutely sure it's him.

It is best to plant the "witches onion" in your own garden. Or you go collect with expert. This is in order anyway, because the herbs are under nature protection: You may pluck it only for the own and daily requirement in the field.

The most important distinction to externally similar, but internally poisonous: wild garlic has a keel in the leaf underside, which runs through the entire sheet clearly. Lilies of the valley and Salomon's seals do not have this characteristic. Always pick the herb in the field with a stalk. This is the only way to rule out that a leaf of lily of the valley accidentally gets lost in its salad.

From wild garlic leaves can be prepared for example, delicious pesto. (Image: ji_images / fotolia.com)

When is the best collection time for wild garlic?

Wild garlic flowers in April and May. Now the nutrients are in flowers, stems and onions. However, we do not in any case take these from the wild to preserve the stock of this no longer frequent plant.

In contrast, we harvest the young leaves in March and early April. We can use them freshly, freeze them, put them in oil or preserve them otherwise, and have a stock all year long. They taste fresh the best.

Wild garlic in the kitchen

Everything about the plant can be eaten. We use the onions in the kitchen like garlic onions. The fruits are allowed to stew, the flower stems serve as a seasoning. The spring herb is an all-rounder. Less dominant than garlic, it adapts to different flavors and yet gives food a unique touch. Wild garlic pesto with olive oil is more than just an insider tip for pasta sauces. Wild garlic in a herbal dressing also makes an inconspicuous lamb's lettuce an experience.

Better than his relative, the intrusive garlic, he also uses his own vegetables - hence the name garlic spinach. We cook the wild garlic leaves in the whole and eat them like spinach. This goes very well with potatoes, pasta, dumplings and other starchy side dishes with little taste, which balance the strong aroma of leeks. As with all herbs, the beneficial substances are best kept raw.

Garlic with less odor

Wild garlic has a big advantage over garlic. The chlorophyll of the green leeks prevents us from exuding the sulfur substances from the pores as with garlic. The "witch onion" we smell only from the mouth, and less than his cousin.

Giersch

Imagine growing parsley and carrots in their garden without having to do anything about it. Could you now curse this "weed", tear it out, throw it into the organic waste and curse it again every year about this "plague" - even though you know that you can process it into vegetables too? However, gardeners do this with a close relative of carrot and parsley, which tastes similar. More specifically, greed tastes like a mixture of carrots, parsley, spinach and celery.

Vegetable gardeners should love giersch, and not hate. He is always reaping and is always fresh. It surpasses almost all salads and vegetables with raw amounts of vitamins and minerals. It can be used as green manure and as a basis for compost. He can be used universally in the kitchen.

The delicious wild vegetables are just as umbellifer as parsley, delicious in soups, salads and sauces and rich in valuable substances. This "weed" contains four times as much vitamin C as lemon, plus iron, copper and manganese. It detoxifies, purifies the blood and drives the urine flow.

Gardeners often consider giersch to be a nuisance weed - it can be used as delicious and healthy wild vegetables. (Image: Denis Sandmann / fotolia.com)

The ground cover grows almost everywhere. In gardens he quickly proliferates the whole area, preferring partial shade and shade. Harvesting it is very easy. They pluck the young leaves off.

You can cut the leaves raw in lettuce, quark or dips or cook them like spinach. In a vegetable soup, use it similar to parsley.

Difference between Giersch and hemlock

Socrates died after drinking a hemlock. To make sure that this does not happen to you, when you are slurping what you thought to be gruel, pay attention to the following: Giersch differs from the poisonous hemlock in the cross-section of the triangular petiole and the smell of parsley.

Spitz and Breitwegerich

Plantain, dandelion and clover are three varieties of unsprung roadsides. They grow on uncultivated grass as well as on fallow land or on the railway embankment. The blessings of the plantain know very few, although it is omnipresent.

Plantain acts against bacteria, helps with gastritis, gastrointestinal inflammation, diarrhea and irritable bowel. It can be used in insect bites, in addition to inflammation of the respiratory tract and pharyngeal mucosa. Plantain can be eaten raw like salad or blanched like spinach.

stinging nettle

Some buy nettle tea at the health food store or pharmacy. You can harvest this supposed weed wherever the soil is not too sour. Use gloves to prevent the burning hair from getting into your skin. When cooking, the hair loses its sharpness. To eat stinging nettles raw, roll them in rolling pin over the leaves or rub them off with a brush. The stinging hairs also destroy when you wash the leaves with cold water.

The plant contains a lot of protein, vitamins and minerals. It detoxifies better than most other medicinal herbs, drives the urine and metabolism.

Nettle leaves taste in soups and salads, quarks and cheese, in yoghurt or casseroles and also as a vegetable garnish.

dandelion

The good is growing right in front of your nose. A disregarded delicacy is the dandelion, which is inseparable from the kitchen in Turkey, for example.

drugs

The bitter substances in the plant stimulate digestion and metabolism, dandelion also contains

• vitamin C,
• Provitamin A,
• folic acid,
• potassium,
• calcium,
• iron,
• carotenoids,
• flavonoids,
• Saponins and
• Lävulin.

The young leaves in spring not only taste good, they also contain the most vitamin C.

Eat dandelion

From the dandelion we can eat everything, the roots, leaves and flowers. Dandelion leaves fit well in a salad, preferably young in spring. The bitter taste is when we put the leaves in salt water or leave them in a salad sauce with creme fraiche. It also muffles when we mix carrots, kohlrabi, field or iceberg lettuce into the salad. Tomatoes also harmonize with dandelions. Raw, the finely chopped leaves fit well in herb quark or herb butter.

In spring, the dandelion contains fewer bitter substances and can therefore be eaten well. For example, a small salad can be served with the little leaves. (Image: Daniel Vincek / fotolia.com)

The leaves can not only be consumed raw, but also cook - like spinach. Quiches, casseroles, soups or sauces, everything is possible. The root we can cook to Mus and stir in a stew, but also bake.

The flowers are an insider tip for cocktails with or without alcohol. We can also boil them with water and sugar to a syrup or put the closed flowers in vinegar.

Dandelion as a medicinal plant

The folk medicine used dandelion against gastrointestinal problems, against indigestion and for liver and gall. The herb drives the urine and therefore prevents kidney stones. In the past, therefore, the root got the disreputable name "Pisswurzel" or "bedpisser".

A warning: You should not eat dandelion if you take blood thinning medication.

daisy

Daisies are not only beautiful for children who give mums a bouquet of flowers, they provide us with important active ingredients in the spring. Daisy makes blood, drives water and dissolves mucus. The white petals decorate salads, desserts or soups.

Both the leaves and the closed flower buds and open flowers can be used. The flowers taste sweet and nutty, the leaves a bit like sorrel. You can harvest most of the year, from March to late autumn. The flowers are the best in late spring.

Daisy Daisy is a daisy-flower related to other eating and medicinal plants, with dandelion, yarrow and chamomile - and it notices her tongue.

The plant has tannins and thus stimulates the appetite as well as the digestive juices of the stomach, liver and bile. It cleanses the blood and inhibits inflammation. The contained flavonoids have antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-fungal properties. They breastfeed bleeding.

Healthy and good food

So you can eat healthy and good food with all-important plants that you pick directly from your own garden and previously probably only known as rabbit food. From hand to mouth in this case is a quality certificate. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)