You do need gloves and clippers to collect them, and a good set of kitchen shears to remove the prickles along the leaves edge. They look absolutely dashing in a salad of mostly dark or pale greens. They have mild yet robust sweet nutty flavor, and if picked in the morning and then kept slightly moist and refrigerated until served for lunch or dinner, they are delightfully crisp.
Yes, they are a bit of work, but in the early spring, most anything from the garden, the fields, or the forest is welcome. Please be careful to not gather where anyone may be spraying pesticide or there is a chance of industrial pollution.
My photo from 4.7.2004, moist riparian alder woods along Mill Creek in Hoopa CA. I can still smell those woods across the years and miles.
Individual milk thistle plants can grow to be 4 - 5 feet tall and wide, with leaves nearly 3 feet long, when they are really happy. And it is sometimes found in large stands. I can take full sun to deep shade. Pictured is a baby growing in deep shade, about a foot a cross, max and only a few inches tall.
If you have any questions or tips you would like to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. All comments are moderated, and right now I seem to be locked out of admin for my own blog. But at least I can post, which I had been locked out of for a while.
Text and photo copyright 2018, Harvest McCampbell, all rights reserved. May be used in print based, audio, or video media with written permission only. harvest95546 @ yahoo.com
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