When Life Drowns Your Garden, You Make Weed Omelet

I never thought, in the last couple of years, that I'd complain about rain. Our area has had a major drought for that long. But some weeks this spring, we had rain almost continuously.  There's been not much sun and mostly been too wet to work in the garden. So the carefully planted greens and onion seeds fizzled or were overwhelmed by weeds. By the time the mustard greens were of a size to harvest, bugs attacked and made lace of them. The tiny onion plants that had sprouted disappeared. Even the spinach stayed puny and started to bolt. Only the peas remained hardy (Those that the chickens didn't sit on.) and have produced a meager harvest for us.

So yesterday I decided to just start over with those beds, and give up on the few remaining greens. I was pulling weeds so that I could replant once the soil dries up. I started to throw the weeds on the compost heap, when I realized how much I would be wasting. You see, most of these weeds were edible - chickweed, violets, lamb's quarters, dandelions and sorrel. So I saved all the best of the edible weeds, washed them, and stored them in the fridge.  I have enough that I should be able to dry or freeze some of them.

This morning I took a couple of handfuls of these wild greens, sauteed them for a few minutes and then poured a couple of beaten eggs over them. I let the eggs cook until set, then flipped half the mixture over like an omelet. It was delicious! 

So maybe next year I'll skip sowing greens in the spring, and just go with the weeds - at least in one or two beds. And I'll definitely start the onions from seed in the greenhouse we'll be building instead of planting them directly.