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"Don't throw these away, they're delicious!"

I can hear my grandmother utter these words even now over ten years later. I watched my father, his fingernails encrusted with dirt, methodically yank weeds from around the seedlings he had just planted. Minutes passed and the mound of weeds grew. He was about to throw the weeds into the compost pile when my grandmother came running outside.

My grandmother at that moment ran out of the house, her hair a bit unruly, her signature house dress rippling as she scurried over to wear my father was weeding. He looked up from his task with a look of sheer curiosity as she rummaged through the pile of young weeds.

"There, see these? You don't want to throw these away." She explained that the greens were called "levethies" - she only knew the Greek name and for a while, so did I. I learned later that they were called "Lamb's Ears". She placed the greens in the fold of her dress and walked, a bit slower this time, back into the house to prepare dinner. I tasted one and she was right, they were good - the flavor reminded me of spinach only a little milder.

It seems that I always understood the value of gardening but it wasn't until that moment that I learned that common weeds had their place on the dinner table. In the third grade we grew bean plants. I recall pushing the seed into the earth and watering every day when the teacher said it was time. I found a sunny spot in the corner of the window sill and my plant grew tall and strong.

But in that moment everything changed. I knew that gardening was about more than pushing seeds into the earth, caring for them, and then harvesting the bounty. All plant life needed to be valued. What other common garden weeds were there that had value? I made it my life mission to find out.

I started by picking young dandelion greens and lambs quarters. Around dinner time like clockwork I'd show up with my bounty of wild plants so that my mother could dutifully add them to the evening's salad. I imagined myself in Greece, the country of my ancestors, foraging in the wild to feed my family. In a way this act connecting me to my heritage.

Years later I still garden and I still forage. When I grow tomatoes I examine the weeds as I pluck them out of the ground. Is it edible? Does it have medicinal value? I continued my education of the plants and became an herbalist - a natural extension to my love of plants. I grow my own medicines and forage for them when I'm able. Without that lesson in the garden that day when I was younger I wouldn't be where I am today.

Learn more about this author, Katherine Huether.
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