The Potato Portulaca and Pigweed Patch

Labyrinth Location: Not even close. Across the street.
Vegetable: Potatoes
Seed/Transplant Date: May 20?
Soil Preparation: Rototilled existing garden (borrowed space from bro-in-law).

Picked a pail a' portulaca . . .

. . . and it's quite tasty stuff, kind of lemony flavoured, but most of it is still in the fridge, waiting for me to try cooking Mexican Purslane Stuffing. Purslane is what you call it when you're planning to eat it. When you're getting hypertensive over any little sprig of it in the garden, you call it portulaca.

By the way, I think they left a step out of that recipe. They forgot to actually add the purslane. I'm guessing that happens right before you "saute until . . . the flavours marry."

I was introduced to purslane as a food by my dear friend Anita, just last summer. This year I was watching for it in my garden, and feeling rather sad that I hadn't found a single sprig. My mom is almost obsessive about cleaning out every last leaf, since even one tiny leaf can root and grow again. I guess I must have followed her teaching too well in the last couple of years.

Then I went across the street to check the potatoes. Bonanza! The ground was almost carpeted with it. Like I said, I picked an ice-cream pail full, and that was, oh, less than a third of the patch. And I wasn't picking the patch clean, either - leave some for next year, I figure!

I had bits of it on sandwiches and stuff, but before I could get 'round to cooking up that dish I linked above, I pulled a bunch of redroot pigweed from the yin-yang garden, and found another recipe: Stir-Fried Pigweed with Coconut (pdf). I was halfway through preparing the leaves, when I decided I didn't have enough, so across the street I went again to the patch of plenty. We had a great feed of stir-fried pigweed, and it was delicious - a delightful meal, except for the kids' reaction. After they had stirred up a heated argument and fried everyone's nerves, Ruth tried some and decided she liked it. James, on the other hand, declared that he will be doing all the cooking this summer.

Here is a wider view of the potato patch. There's an enormous volunteer spinach on the left, and the odd dill plant or radish scattered through. The larger darker potatoes in the middle distance are from purchased Pontiac seed potatoes, while the foreground is whatever variety we've been growing and eating for years - Netted Gems, maybe? The background area, behind that row of Pontiac potatoes, is B's garden.


And today I found a single purslane plant in the last untended corner of the yin-yang garden. I wonder. Should I break it up and spread it around a bit, for next year?