Although it’s been growing in my yard for years, I first heard about purslane while watching Dr. Oz on Oprah a couple years back. According to Dr. Oz, purslane is high in Omega 3 which we all need.
Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is also high in beta-carotene, as well as magnesium and potassium. It was used in Europe years ago as a remedy for arthritis and inflammation.
It looks like a baby jade plant, with a sturdy reddish stem and little leaves.
I harvested this bunch yesterday out of a flower bed. I walked by to check on the flowers and there it was. Of course, I had to pick it for our lunch salad.
Our salad was all homegrown except for the almonds. Dave made Daphne’s garlic scape salad dressing to top it all off. Yum! We love garlic and the scapes are wonderful! Here is Dave’s garlic scape pesto recipe. Oops, I got carried away with the garlic scapes!
Getting back to purslane. It has a little lemony flavor and a bit sweet. It’s great in a salad, but it would be good on a sandwich, or in a stir fry or an omelet. Just make sure if you pick some from your yard that they’ve not been sprayed. You also can buy seed and grow your own crop.
Yesterday morning before the purslane adventure, I did my daily harvesting. The blueberries are slow to turn, but the black raspberries are really doing well – our second year of harvest for these babies.
Yesterday, I harvested just shy of a pound of these beauties. We ate some for dessert last night and the rest were frozen for this winter’s feast.
I love being able to harvest from our yard. Well, it’s time to get back out there again and see what’s ready.
This is good to know–I’ve been ripping this out of our garden by the handful this week!
I’ll have to be on the lookout for purlsane now! I thought of ordering Purslane seeds for our winter garden, I first hear of it in Elliot Coleman’s four season harvest, but never thought to look for it in the lawn! And you have cucumbers already? Ours are still tiny little things, probably ready next week. Happy harvesting!
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Mandy, Yes, it’s in your yard!! How cool is that! We did try growing some from seed several years ago and it didn’t do as well as just finding it in the yard!! If you do get the seed, it might be good to put it in a pot so it doesn’t spread all over your garden! Yep, our cukes he grew in the greenhouse.
Eileen, I know what you mean. Done that.
Yum, those black raspberries look good and such an interesting color! Can’t believe you already have cucumbers. Ours aren’t showing yet, but we do have a couple zucchinis nearly ready for harvest.
I’ll keep an eye out for the purslane now 🙂
Kristina recently posted..this is getting way out of hand