I had offered to rake leaves for my neighbor last fall so that I would have plenty for adding to my compost throughout the winter months. On the day that I was prepared to do this, she told me that she had just had a company spray her yard. When I asked her what she was spraying for, she answered, “Dandelions.” I replied that dandelions are actually very nutritious, but she insisted that she did not like them in her yard. I politely declined then, to rake her leaves, since I did not want herbicides anywhere near my compost pile. It was a stark reminder for me that most people are completely clueless about the dire state our world is in.
I have a fond memory of living with my grandmother high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I would walk along with her to the underground, moss framed spring where she would fill two 5 gallon buckets and then carry them, one in each hand, back to the house. She had to make this trip several times a day, especially if she was filling the big laundry tub or the bathtub. I would often pick her a bouquet of dandelions as I followed her to and from the spring.
I was too young to enjoy a glass of her homemade dandelion wine, but my grandmother knew the benefits of this maligned flower. Every part of the plant can be utilized. The flowers are sweet and can be added to salads and other recipes. The leaves, used as salad greens, contain more vitamins than kale. They also make nutritious tea. The roots are nutritious as well and they have medicinal uses. Wherever there is an abundance of dandelions, there is a soil that is sorely depleted. Their long tap roots can help to loosen compacted soil. When the leaves dry and fall off, they add calcium to the soil. They can sweeten a soil that is too acidic. Dandelion is one of the first flowers to bloom in spring and one of the last to linger before winter. Their flowers open to the warm sunlight and close in the cool evening. Most importantly, the flowers provide food for the first bees and insects that appear in spring because they so generously provide nectar as well as pollen. They aid insects in the fall that need nutrients to see them through hibernation. Clearly, those companies who pressure people into using glyphosate to kill dandelions and other weeds, know nothing about this most valuable “weed.”
I fail to understand why this flower is so misunderstood and despised by so many people. Besides being beneficial, it is bright and cheerful. Why are we paying upwards of $4.00 for a plastic box of salad greens, which are often several days old? The nutrients begin to die within minutes after the salad greens are picked so we are not benefiting much by eating them. Then, except for the few that get recycled, the plastic box gets thrown away. There is free food awaiting us in our very own yards, but we must first open our minds, to see it.
