treehouseholodeck:

Life in one room

The Saga of Pokeweed: An All-American Plant

We garden in our back yard, behind our apartment in an industrial part of Brooklyn. Although it is heavily contaminated with lead (at an outrageously toxic 2100ppm), we are growing food in raised, isolated containers with lead-free dirt brought in from elsewhere. We are also planting non-edible plants in the yard’s soil itself, carefully, with special gardening gloves, shoes, and pants that we leave outside. Our focus for the yard has been to create a sanctuary for local wildlife (yes, there is some!) by planting only native plant species that they can eat and enjoy.

While gardening and weeding last fall, I noticed a huge leafy, red-stalked plant that we did not plant ourselves, growing underneath our back tree. Turns out it’s also native to the New York area — pokeweed!

Late autumn pokeweed in our back yard:

Here’s what a mature plant looks like (in someone else’s yard):

It’s a plant with a long and interesting history. Apparently pokeweed is both (a) poisonous to humans (b) eaten by humans, as something called “poke sallet” in many southern states — if you boil and rinse it a few times it becomes nonpoisonous and sweeter than spinach.

Also apparently it’s hugely loved by all sorts of native birds and wildlife (the American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Mourning Dove, Gray Catbird, Eastern Bluebird, Northern Cardinal, Great-crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Phoebe, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, European Starling, Brown Thrasher, Cedar Waxwing, Red Fox, Virginia Opossum, Raccoon, and White-footed Mouse all eat the berries).

It has many other uses. The berries are a beautiful purple stain, and has been made into ink. The Declaration of Independence was signed with pokeweed berry ink:

Pokeweed may have other uses as well. According to the American Cancer Society, the plant has been shown to fight cancer cells.

Here’s some evidence that birds love pokeweed - it stains their feathers!

Despite some of the effects of the unremediated pokeweed toxins including “vomiting, abdominal spasms, diarrhea, convulsions, and even death by respitory paralysis,” [1] plenty of people eat and enjoy it (you just have to cook it properly). Here is a recipe for a delicious-looking pokeweed tart.

Unfortunately, we won’t be eating any poke sallet due to our yard’s lead content. What a shame!

The only problem that I’ve found with Pokeweed is that it’s hugely invasive! It also has a huge tuber root about the size of a football on mature plants! Arrrgh! In order to kill thep lant you have to actually dig up the root, otherwise it regenerates. The following is a pretty accurate depiction of the ratio betwen root and leaves that I’ve found in our yard.

We’d like to keep the pokeweed plants contained in one area of our back yard. I told this to a friend and seasoned gardner, who promptly laughed at me and remarked, “good luck!”. Haha. The problem is that birds eat the berries and then poop them out all over the place, spreading the plants for next year!

One thing that might work for removing pokeweed plants straying into other areas of the yard is pouring boiling water into the ground around the partially-exposed root. That might be easier than digging up a bunch of huge, deep tuber roots all over the place. Does anyone have any experience with this chemical-free method of weed control?

Finally, here’s a great track by Tony Joe White from the late 1960s, called Poke Salad Annie: