Weeds that were or could be cropped.

[DrWazzock]

I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it all wrong.
Why not cultivate the stuff that grows like crazy and forget cereals and conventional crops.
I was thinking in particular of “Fat Hen”
It grows given half a chance and combines very well. Does anybody know if the seed is a useful feed. Did they fatten hens on it at one time?

I heard the Romans used it for something as well as growing nettles for flax.
Any other weeds in your locality that once had a profitable use, (apart from OSR ?).

 

[Chae1]

Wild oats. Be plenty straw.

 

[Flat 10]

I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it all wrong.
Why not cultivate the stuff that grows like crazy and forget cereals and conventional crops.
I was thinking in particular of “Fat Hen”
It grows given half a chance and combines very well. Does anybody know if the seed is a useful feed. Did they fatten hens on it at one time?

I heard the Romans used it for something as well as growing nettles for flax.
Any other weeds in your locality that once had a profitable use, (apart from OSR ?).

Wasn’t you talking about willow weed for bird seed?

 

[steveR]

I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it all wrong.
Why not cultivate the stuff that grows like crazy and forget cereals and conventional crops.
I was thinking in particular of “Fat Hen”
It grows given half a chance and combines very well. Does anybody know if the seed is a useful feed. Did they fatten hens on it at one time?

I heard the Romans used it for something as well as growing nettles for flax.
Any other weeds in your locality that once had a profitable use, (apart from OSR ?).

A now deceased neighbour was famous for his generosity in producing fine crops of Johnny Nails (or fat hen) in a sugar beet crop. It was a guarantee of a good flush of pheasants and partridge where it was growing!! So I assume plenty of seed drop was going on...

 

[DrWazzock]

Wasn’t you talking about willow weed for bird seed?

I was told it was grown in these parts to supply the black market birdseed trade during the war, or maybe that was what they said when fields used to become overrun with it here before effective herbicides. Uncle always said it was generally a race between spring cereals and willow weed ( or redshank as we call it). He reckoned the combine looked like an elephant crapping if the redshank won.

 

[steveR]

I was told it was grown in these parts to supply the black market birdseed trade during the war, or maybe that was what they said when fields used to become overrun with it here before effective herbicides. Uncle always said it was generally a race between spring cereals and willow weed ( or redshank as we call it). He reckoned the combine looked like an elephant crapping if the redshank won.

Terrible stuff that.... used to see it now and then in years gone by.

 

[New Puritan]

I think fat hen is a relative of quinoa. You just need to market it as a British version.

 

[steveR]

I think fat hen is a relative of quinoa. You just need to market it as a British version.

Sure looks the same!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Dad used to graze Red Leg , always said it milked as good as clover

 

[DanniAgro]

Back when you'd starve if there was a poor harvest, Fathen was an acceptable bit of greenery especially in the winter. But I won't be picking a handful this Sunday instead of broccoli.

 

[David.]

Quinoa, or Keenwarh as the more poncy TV cooks like to call it, must be mostly muckleweed I reckon, how could you possibly keep a crop of quinoa clean of it?

 

[DrWazzock]

We have had some excellent crops of black bindweed in the winter beans, the sort that pulls stuff in from 50 yards away and can jam a table auger like no wire rope ever could. The seed bagged off the dresser looked like parsnip seed but smaller. We used to spread it in the woods for the birds in winter.

 

[neilo]

I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it all wrong.
Why not cultivate the stuff that grows like crazy and forget cereals and conventional crops.
I was thinking in particular of “Fat Hen”
It grows given half a chance and combines very well. Does anybody know if the seed is a useful feed. Did they fatten hens on it at one time?

I heard the Romans used it for something as well as growing nettles for flax.
Any other weeds in your locality that once had a profitable use, (apart from OSR ?).

I understood the Romans brought it with them, growing it as a forage crop. A member of our sheep group cut & baled a reseed that was infested with fat hen, with the resultant haylage analysing at about 28%CP iirc. Absolute rocket fuel for his sheep, although they left a load of stems behind.

 

[DrWazzock]

We have lots of ground elder in the garden which was apparently a vegetable in the Middle Ages. Tastes a bit like some of those leaves in those salad bags.
if you can’t beat them, make use of them. They never seem to suffer pests and diseases.

 

[neilo]

I think fat hen is a relative of quinoa. You just need to market it as a British version.

We have a cricket club in the middle of our farm, which obviously has a few visitors through the summer (usually). I had a field of swedes (Galstir ‘unsprayed roots’) next to it a couple of years ago which was absolutely swamped with Fathen. Obviously a lot of questions were asked about what I was growing in that field and, for those that were actually brave enough to ask me, I ‘may’ have mentioned Quinoa....

 

[Derrick Hughes]

And then there was the farmer who baled a field of black grass and customers loved it . It wasn't me . Looked just like best meadow hay

 

[Goweresque]

Comfrey. Stuff grows like stink. Roots go down miles, get water and nutrients from far further down than anything else. Can be turned into fertiliser as well, by mulching the leaves in a barrel. Used to be grown as fodder crop on small holdings apparently, cut daily and fed to penned livestock.

Lawrence Hills on comfrey

Although the permaculture literature is full of glowing reports about comfrey, little practical advice is given for using the wonder plant.

www.waldeneffect.org

 

[DrWazzock]

I understood the Romans brought it with them, growing it as a forage crop. A member of our sheep group cut & baled a reseed that was infested with fat hen, with the resultant haylage analysing at about 28%CP iirc. Absolute rocket fuel for his sheep, although they left a load of stems behind.

The sheep are always pleased to strip the leaves off a fat hen plant here but as you say they leave the woody stalks. Thousands of seeds on mature plants for winter bird feed as well.

 

[New Puritan]

Garden Organic used to be called (catchily!) The Henry Doubleday Research Association in memory of the guy who spent ages researching comfrey, only for his family to dump all his work when he died.

 

[DrWazzock]

The old folk drank nettle soup from young perennial nettle leaves. I was taught to harvest the leaves by grasping them tightly between finger and thumb so they don’t sting.