goosefoot - enemy or friend ?

Goosefoot (Chenopodium album) is not exactly a popular plant among gardeners and farmers. It produces hundreds of seeds and thus a single plant can lead to a small field full of it for the next year or even the same season under favorable conditions. It also behaves like the hydra as it only gets more "heads" when you cut it down. It also gets quite high and casts shadows over the beds.

But I don't intend to speak ill of goosefoot, on the contrary! I'll tell you why I'm actually very happy to have it in my garden. Maybe you will also get a taste of it?

Goosefoot as food

Did you know that goosefoot is in the amaranth family and closely related to quinoa? It is also known as "wild quinoa" and the seeds can be eaten in exactly the same way and taste the same, they are just a bit more crunchy. They can also just be sprinkled on salads and smoothies as they are or sprouted. And with that in mind, it is a huge advantage that a single plant produces so many seeds..

The leaves are used as spinach both cooked or raw. Also, my spinach has failed for two years in a row now regardless of when and how it was sown. So my freezer is full of goosefoot instead. It grew on the potato field without further supervision and actually contains more protein, minerals and vitamins than both spinach and cabbage.
In the spring and as long as the stems are still soft, the entire above-ground part of the plant can be eaten. Later in the season, I only use the leaves that can be easily removed from the stems.

The flower buds can also be eaten and I treat them just like broccoli

Goosefoot as a low-maintenance vegetable

If you aqire a taste for the leaves then you can use the crop's ability to form more branches after it has been cut down to your advantage. When you harvest, you can just cut it off a few centimeters above the ground (leave a pair of leaves) and it will produce new shoots and you will soon have a small spinach-like bush which is easy to harvest and which produces lots of leaves.

Also, the fact that it self-sows has its advantages, namely that you neither need to buy nor take care of the seeds (for sowing) or spend time in the spring as there are so many things to do anyway. Goosefoot does well on its own throughout its growth, but if you want to get a larger crop, leave it where it has good, nutritious and evenly moist soil.

When goosefoot thrives, it can quickly become over a meter high, but also that can be beneficial. If you're harvesting the seeds, it is a comfortable working position and, not least, you have more food per square meter if you also get to use the height.

How to keep goosefoot in check

There are, of course, also spots where goosefoot is unwanted or must be kept under control. this is easy to achieve with a few simple measures.
You can prevent the seeds from germinating by covering the soil and digging into it as little as possible. There are also many other advantages to using this method, which I will write about in a separate post later.

Goosefoot is one of the first annual plants to sprout in the spring. This is an advantage both in terms of harvesting and weeding.
It is the perennial plants that provide us first with fresh greens in early spring. Since they have stored energy from the previous year in their roots, they get an early start. (read more about why I value perennial crops here). But goosefoot doesn't hesitate long before it sprouts either and emerges earlier than most of the annual vegetables. Since the sprouts are also quite easy to recognize, they can be weeded easily. When they are still small, it is enough to just scrape the soil a little to remove them. If the soil surface is slightly damp or rain is forecasted for the next 24 hours, I pick the sprouts up at the end so that they don't grow back again. If there are temporarily dry conditions, they dry out quickly and can turn back into soil right on the spot.
I have also seen farmers who burn the sprouts with a type of flame thrower where they had sown carrots that need plenty of time to sprout. It seems like a very effective method, but I prefer ground cover as I don't risk burning down the whole farm. The burning method is probably best suited to large open areas such as fields and not so much in my tiny kitchen garden.

conclusion

I don't call a plant a weed which is both such a useful and easy-to-care-for food plant and easy to remove where it is unwanted. It is therefore acquitted of this judgment in my garden. Maybe I managed to convince you and you can welcome it in your garden, too? Or perhaps you have already done so? If you want to share experiences or if you have any questions, feel free to write a comment.

Happy Goating