How to Grow: Wild Greens

If you forage and eat wild greens like wintercress in early spring, you’re already a fan of their flavor and texture. This spring, plant cultivated varieties of some wild greens. Lambs quarters and amaranth grow easily, look attractive in your garden, and taste mild and earthy.

Now, seed companies offer certain cultivated wild greens that can be planted in your backyard gardens and raised beds. You’ll have a ready-to-pick selection of delicious wild microgreens that also look beautiful and have a milder flavor than their wilder cousins. The shining star of wild greens might be the leaves of the common and cheery yellow-flowered dandelion. They are ubiquitous in spring and summer on lawns and in fields just about everywhere. But the type to plant in your garden is not that weedy one — it’s a cultivated version in the chicory family with leaves that look similar to wild dandelions’ long, narrow and serrated ones. The garden kind grows with larger leaves and produces a small blue flower. They also taste less bitter. Cultivated dandelion leaves — try types like “Clio” or “Italico Red,” which boasts red stems — can be eaten right through the summer and into the fall.

Two other wild greens germinate well and grow nicely in a garden spot: lambsquarters, or Chenopodium, and amaranth. Lambsquarters grow with small green leaves that can be picked in spring and added to salads and soups. Try “Magenta Spreen.” It’ll self-sow and grow for many seasons in your garden. The same is true with amaranth, also known as callaloo — a common cooking ingredient in Jamaican and African dishes. If you’re adding amaranth to dishes like soups and stews, harvest the greens when they’re small.