Dandelions

in the garden

Before a mid-April two-inch snowfall, I walked the gardens and noticed rosettes of dandelion already forming. They don’t waste any time. They got started last summer; now they’re ready to take off. Not really different from those growing all over the lawns, but I have a different approach here. If I rototill these dandelions, they’ll thank me. New plants will sprout from every chunk of root the tiller leaves behind.

Next week I’ll talk about how organized hostility to dandelions is part of our colonial approach to lawns. But in the garden, I treat them as food. It’s the garden, after all. This isn’t to say we should never dig dandelions from our lawns to eat…but it’s easier to dig them in the garden—and I would want to know what poisons have been applied to lawns before rushing to make a meal of those plants.

So this poem goes old-fashioned—Admire! Forage! Eat! Develop a new (old) relationship to the lovely—wildly successful, apparently only mildly nutritious-for-pollinators—invasive that accompanied Europeans to this continent—the Dandelion.

Dandelions

Each day new rosettes of dandelion  
in the garden advance on snow’s 

retreating rim.  Green nests tucked in
beneath tan brittle stalks of last fall’s

vines and flowering.  Everywhere on ground 
left bare   cozied up to terrace-logs sinking 

into loam—aggressively at home.  This 
spring   from their perspective   it would be

just fine if I didn’t do a thing.
But here I am   garden-fork in hand

because they already own the lawns
and I   like them   am pushy and have plans.


I enjoy the digging   pry deep down 
listen for separation-sigh

slip taproot out   raise in admiration
the pliant needle that tried to leave 

some bit to sprout again.  Leaves bloom 
from the root in slow explosion—

white underneath   soil-flecked hints of red
then saw-toothed green in full eruption.

I scissor them into my basket. Sautéed
in olive oil   our spring delicacy.  Thus

they claim victory   greens to capture me
next   colonies of sunlight for the bees. 

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** Special bonus: Click here for a tasty dandelion greens recipe. (They do need a lot of picking over and washing.)

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