#aegopodium

I don’t think there is an edible plant that is easier to grow than ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria). Nettles are a good second, but they require careful handling. Not so with this beauty. Edible leaves, can be used instead of spinach, or in salads etc.  I grow it in a very small and shallow pot, I didn’t water it enough last summer, so it died off but its roots still lived. A bigger pot would give it more space to thrive. A very historical vegetable, and a forgotten one. The romans ate it of course, and so did people in the middle ages. Always remember those were the times food wasn’t harvested from supermarket shelves and agriculture on a grand scale did not exist, but famines did so it made all the sense to eat easy stuff like this.

Now even if you have a garden and think you’d like to grow the easiest leaf vegetable in the world, plant some in a pot or container, not in full ground. After all there’s a reason it is so easy to grow. It is almost impossible that none of the people you know has is in their garden, so it’s easy to come by. The variegated variety is way prettier, so if you can grow that one for maximum wow.

Growing in a pot obviously prevents it from spreading via rhizomes, at least if you don’t place the pot on soil. A root may escape through a drainage hole and invade your garden. So place it on a slab of concrete, sheet of plastic or put it on a table, just so it doesn’t touch any soil. I’d also advise you to cut off the flowers before they go to seed and put them in the bin, don’t compost. Just to be sure it doesn’t spread unnoticed by seed.

By growing it youself you can make sure no dog has peed on the leaves. If you’d rather pick it from somewhere else, you can be sure you’re not only eating ground elder, but also dog urine.