Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis, is also known as King's Cure-all or common Evening PRimrose. As it is a biennial, it starts growing the first year and then sends up its flower stalk the second, seeds and dies off. In my gardens it comes up all over, so much so that I have usually just pulled it out whenever it gets to widespread. Well, with my research on edibles, I found out that it is indeed edible. As it was so late in the season I was unable to try the young leaves, but found out that the root is edible between the first and second year, which is right now. SO I found a few, and dug them up.THis is what the plant looks like right now in my garden.
The roots are nothing like the carrot like root I am used to with the parsnips I have grown in the past. It turns out that the ones I dug up did not always look alike. Some had fingers going every which way and one looked very much like a radish. So I followed the directions and simmered a few for 20 minutes, and found that I did not like the taste at all. One of the guides suggest it may have a strong flavor. I'll say. My lips just did not want anything to do with the contact. So I followed another suggestion which was to boil them in two changes of water. It toned down the taste a great deal, and it was almost a pleasant taste, but I'm not sure I will want to go to the trouble.
I have not ruled it out in the future. Maybe I will give it another try next year, when I have more patience to give it the double boiling. I am finding other edibles much easier to prepare and much more tasty. So the jury is out on this one
2 comments:
Interesting about the edibility, and too bad about the taste!
The evening primrose seeds that I planted last fall grew in abundance this year, and one of them even flowered a year early. With any luck I'll have a big crop of seeds next winter for the birds. Gold finches LOVE these seeds! You can see the pods get progressively more chewed open as the winter comes along.
I have seen Evening Primrose grow into very large shrubs, which add interest to any garden.Good to know about the Goldfinch liking the seeds, although I will probably be harvesting the plant parts and root, if I find them more tasty next year(!) on many of them. Now I will need to leave some just for the birds!!
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