(lively music) (light music) - So I am standing by actually a very gorgeous sow thistle.

Most would look at the sow thistle and want to eradicate it or just look at it as a useless weed.

In my world, there is no such thing as a weed; there is only native and non-native plants.

They all have their special unique gifts.

Now, the sow thistle is actually not a true thistle.

The scientific name is one I cannot pronounce, but it does translate into "sow" and "thistle".

So it was called the sow thistle because of the milky-like substance that does come from the stem of the leaves and from the stem itself.

This is actually the perfect stage for harvest.

And you can see it actually resembles a dandelion, and at different stages of growth, resembles some other common greens as well.

What I do with the sow thistle is I utilize the green leaves.

And before I do that, it's important just to kind of milk the stems.

And you can see the white, milky substance that comes out, but also the stem is hollow.

But even cutting it, the white milky substance is getting all over my knife.

But you can see that there.

So if you are gonna utilize the stem, just make sure that you milk it.

That substance is mildly toxic.

People have actually used it traditionally in the removal of warts.

What I do, though, is I stick straight to the greens, and I'm going to use those like I would any other leafy green.

The whole plant is edible.

It can be eaten cooked or raw.

I like to use the leaves because there is a bitter component to them.

And again, I love my salsas.

I like to just throw them, chop them up, throw them right into my salsas.

You can cook them down, kind of gets like a spinach.

You can incorporate that into pastas, soups, stews.

So really any way you want to use the green, use it.

And an ID characteristic of this plant is that the leaves attach right to the stem.

So to use the stem... and the flowers are edible as well.

But really, you're going to, again, milk the white substance out of that.

If you're cooking it down, it pretty much takes care of itself.

The stems, they're a little bit woody, but if you chop them up finely or you can go lengthwise, they just wilt down.

And you can use that just like you would the leafy greens as well.

But for me, I do tend to stick to the leafy greens.

And the flowers resemble a little bit like a dandelion.

Right?

Except the main difference is you get a lot of different flower heads at the end of a stem.

You can do a lot of things with those.

You can fry them up, you can saute them, you can deep fry them; you can do all kinds of things.

Research their nutritional benefits and your mind will be blown.