Chickweed: Taste the Stars – Gardenista

I first met chickweed under an evergreen hedge in Bloemfontein, South Africa. It must have been springtime in that cold, winter-dry city, because the chickweed was lush, abundant, and tender. It smelled fresh and felt cool as I collected it as a green treat for our bantam hen and guinea pigs at home. I was five years old, at loose while my mother played tennis on the court hemmed by the hedge. Fast forward a few decades, and across two hemispheres, and I am collecting chickweed again—this time, to feed humans. The diminutive plant is easily trampled underfoot, but it is a shame to squash or kill such good food (also relished by bees). It is a compelling green vegetable, and tastes effervescently of spring.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Dom Perignon probably never really said that he was drinking the stars when he took a sip of fortuitously fizzy Champagne. That was an early example of marketing spin. But that spin would benefit the lowly lawnweed, Stellaria media. The chickweed genus is named for stars (stella = star), and the tender edible is brilliant with constellations of them in early spring. It’s tiny, five-petaled flowers help identify the plant, whose leaves taste like the scent of freshly-shucked cornsilk, a flavor that is vital and versatile.

Where I live in Brooklyn, New York’s USDA Zone 7 (-ish, thanks to urban microclimates), chickweed can appear as early in the year as February. In milder, moist regions, it is a winter weed, most conspicuous in cool, wet seasons. The Eurasian native, now at home all over the world, shuns heat and humidity. Sometimes, in a cool, damp autumn, it will reappear briefly.

Early in the season chickweed’s habit is prostrate and dense.

In full sun chickweed tends to remain mat-like, but in shade the plants can grow up to 12 pliant inches tall if they have enough moisture. By mid-spring those stems are lankier, the leaves are smaller, paler, and more spaced out, and its habit is defined more by copious seed capsules (beloved by birds), rather than blooms.

I feel rich whenever I collect chickweed. It’s the rare leafy green with striking flavor, and it feels strange and lucky to be gathering for free what could sell for substantial amounts at green markets (and occasionally, it does, when it meets a farmer with foresight).