Not weed.

I was going to blog about a bachelor wandering around the woods eating invasive plant species. That post would have included photos of Japanese Knotweed prepared in a couple of ways. Peeled and steamed. Simmered in a little water and sugar, a la rhubarb. And that might have lead to some good reading (or not). Then I started to investigate Japanese Knotweed and it went from invasive species to wild edible to medicinal plant. And when I got to the medicinal aspect I came to a full stop. Resveratrol? Isn't that used to fight cancer? And treat lyme disease?

But before I go on to talk about Japanese Knotweed as the Wonder Weed, let me report on the stalk as an edible. I liked it when I treated it like I would rhubarb. I wasn't a big fan when I treated it like asparagus. In both cases I found myself chewing it and spitting out the woody fibrous bits. After the rhubarb treatment I went so far as to buy strawberries and was minutes away from making a strawberry knotweed pie when I decided it wasn't worth the bother.

As I began to explore the possibilities of creating a tonic or tincture I felt like I had stumbled upon the best use for the weed and I'm glad I was too preoccupied last year to eradicate it.

I'd like to tell that I've figured out how to make a tincture but I can't. I'm still in the experimental stage.

I went into the back yard and dug up a lot of roots. Then I rinsed them in cold water and peeled off the dark brown outer layer, exposing the next layer of bright yellow/orange. Then I chopped the peeled roots into small pieces (actually I used pruners) and dumped those into a small jar. Next I poured vodka over the root pieces. I capped the jar and I'm storing it in a dark dry cabinet.

I'm going to let this sit for a bit and do a bit more research on making tinctures.

In the meantime here are a few links that might be of interest.

link 1

link 2

link 3

link 4