Now is the time to be hunting salsify.
I saw this video in my RSS feed ad realised I had salsify growing in my garden. The description of the flowers was a dead give away so I went foraging. Look what I found! 🙂
Sorry for the dodgy photo. My phone was playing up.
Again a dodgy photo. I am sorry.
I have no idea if they will survive being replanted (nothing to lose hey) but they’ve been given a new home in the garden out the front. I will give them a taste test and if they pass muster then I shall source some seeds. Better yet, I will harvest seeds from any flowers that avoid being picked by the kids. 😉
Here is a google image of the flower.
One didn’t come out of the ground but broke off instead so the leaves are in dinner tonight. 🙂 There is also a leek from my garden and lots of purple broccoli sprouts and I am really excited to be eating from my garden. 😀 I hope the kids are just as excited.
Rabid Little Hippy 
That’s wild salsify indeed! You can buy seeds for cultivated varieties but you seem to have “cultivated” those entirely by accident! Kudos on your complete lack of effort to grow that variety of food. Sometimes weeds pay off 🙂
We have lots of interesting “weeds” in our garden. Dock and curly dock (lots of it sadly), salsify of course, plantain, wild lettuce of 2 types (great opium substitute), sticky weed (aka velcro plant), mallow and another plant that is similar but with leaves that look like snowflake paper cut outs. Then of course there are 2 different types of severely prickly plants, one which is rather pretty in its variegated leaves and the other which is good old thistles (you can make vegetarian rennet from the flower stamens). Then there are our somewhat larger “weeds” with hawthorn and poplar and there are also blackberries just outside our block but they are poisoned I believe. LOTS happening in our “lawn”. 😉
Not sure you could live off the weeds but lets just say you have “options…by the way, Sticky weed is also called “false cleavers” and is actually useful as well! Check this post… http://www.naturalmedicinalherbs.net/herbs/g/galium-spurium=false-cleavers.php
I think poplars are being looked at for their biomass potential for bio-energy so at least you will be able to put “fuel” in whatever you have as a “car” by that stage 😉
On one of my courses at Shoestring Gardening the presenter took us outside to investigate the weed in the non existent front garden for edibility. He was picking stuff up and giving it a sniff and then popping it in. We all tried it but really, it tasted like weeds. Was he laughing at us secretly and we chewed like cows with pinched up faces. There was also some concern that there was no washing going on. Dog Pee Anyone??? I think there are plenty of things that actually taste good to grow. I do, however, appreciate the hedge forrgers in England. They seem to contain some interesting things to eat and brew.