The most magical years in my childhood started when I was seven. My Puerto Rican family moved off the Georgia Army base that was our first home in the States and into a blue ranch-style house. It was in a cul-de-sac, flanked on one side by a deep, gurgling creek and along the back by a sprawling suburban forest of pine, sweetgum, maple, and oak trees. It was as much a Secret Garden as I could have hoped for, and my mother let me wander free in the kudzu. Our yard, that forest and creek were my domain.

Without realizing it, I was a forager. The 1980s were a simpler time, with so many fewer screens and no such thing as cellphones. So I touched and smelled everything I encountered in that yard, and if it was fragrant or had tender leaves, I was likely to taste it. As an adult, I’ve had marigold flowers in a cocktail, honeysuckle blossoms steeped in buttermilk then baked into a pie, and clovers (like those that dotted my backyard) served atop a fresh, peppery mixed green salad. But as a child, I tasted it all straight from the ground or off the bush. 

My adventurous spirit may be linked to my Puerto Rican ancestry. The island’s tropical climate is estimated to produce up to twice the amount of edible plants as North America, and when you spend time in Puerto Rico, you’re surrounded by herbs and spices growing wild.

Thanks to these experiences, I know that weeds are remarkable. While the term is used to describe a nuisance — perhaps yellow dandelions jutting out of your manicured lawn  — many of these plants, regardless of provenance, are edible. Instead of tossing them into your brown paper lawn bag or compost bin, you might consider harvesting these gifts for future use. 

In reality, my experience munching on random yard plants more closely reflects the vast majority of human existence. As writer Elizabeth Kobert reminds us in her book, Feasting Wild, for 99% of human history, the food we ate was foraged or hunted. Texts across faiths describe dishes with foraged bitter herbs, as do writings from ancient Rome, Medieval times, and beyond. 

Some of today’s most celebrated chefs make ready use of what others might discard. Acclaimed chef René Redzepi has turned cooking with native foraged Nordic ingredients into an art form at the celebrated Copenhagen restaurant Noma, making a dessert with sheep’s milk and citrusy wild sorrel. The famed Italian chef Marcella Hazan frequently used ingredients such as wild arugula, fennel, and nettles in her pasta. Chef Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe in Minneapolis, advocates for and utilizes a variety of native plants, such as milkweed pods, in his restaurant and other culinary projects. And Edna Lewis, considered among the most influential Southern chefs in  history, made a beloved dandelion wine using a gallon of dandelion blossoms.

I, too, have been inspired to harvest and cook with weeds. When living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I saw wild fennel growing out of sidewalks, as well as peppery, citrusy wild nasturtium flowers sprouting up in people’s front yards and crawling up the sides of buildings. In North Carolina, where I live today, I often encounter what’s locally known as wild garlic — with oniony-smelling tender grass and small white bulbs (much like the scallions) — while hiking in the forests along the Eno River. And on a recent trip to Tucson, Arizona, I visited author and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan. We explored what appeared to be dry grass and shrubs before finding amaranth greens, which look like something you might pull from your garden and discard but are quite edible and taste just like spinach. 

To try weed-eating for yourself, you can make a refreshing, aromatic tea with honeysuckle blossoms. Just remove the green sepal from the blossom and rinse to remove any dirt, then steep in barely boiled water for an hour. Or simply add a handful of rinsed, prepared honeysuckle blossoms to your hot or iced green or black tea to add a delightful floral note. 

Or for a twist on classic pesto, replace basil with rinsed dandelion greens. It'll have a similar bite as arugula, which is often used, and melds well with standard pesto ingredients for a zippy adaptation. 

You can typically eat 10% to 30% of what grows around you. Dandelions, nettle, purslane, sorrel, mallow, wild garlic or onion, lamb’s quarters, clover, chickweed, and plantains (yes, they’re considered weeds) are just a handful of the edible plants that grow in backyards, on hillsides, and in fields across the planet. A word of caution: Foragers will tell you that if you’re not 100% certain about a plant, don’t eat it. Be wary of eating any plants that may have been treated and have not been properly cleaned. Of course, you want to also be sure there are no regulations prohibiting foraging from, say, a nature preserve, either. And for those of us living in cities, as tempting as it is to pluck wild fennel from a sidewalk, the plant has been exposed to pollution and shouldn’t be consumed.  

With that noted, have at it. Once you recognize which plants are edible, your yard, flower bed, and neighboring forest or field can become a free pantry whenever you want to add a little spice to your cooking.