Growing the Milkweed for Food 
The stalks are cut when 
young and tender 
Under cultivation the milkweed, like most other wildings, thrives like 
the proverbial bay tree 
A pan of the stalks and tender 
leaves for a salad 
Photographs by the Author 
W E are constantly adding new food¬ 
stuffs to our list and one of the 
newest is milkweed. It has proven itself 
so delicious and healthful that we can only 
wonder at our long neglect of a staple left 
to grow wild in pastures and roadsides. 
Milkweed is now being cultivated for 
the market and, by proper planting, the 
tender shoots are to be had into October, 
whereas in the wild state they are past 
their tenderness in June. 
The flavor of the milkweed is almost ex¬ 
actly like that of asparagus; a blindfolded 
person given it to eat would pronounce it 
asparagus. It is, however, an even richer 
vegetable than the asparagus, as its stalk 
and leaves are filled with a thick milk that 
is exceedingly nutritious when cooked, or, 
for that matter, when eaten raw as a salad, 
which many people prefer, only the tips 
being used in this case. 
For many years farmers’ wives in the 
country have always mixed a few milk¬ 
weed stalks with the mass of mixed greens 
which they delight to gather—dock, dan¬ 
delion, mustard, etc., but they rarely use it 
by itself, which is after all the most de¬ 
licious way, for when cooked with other 
greens the delicate flavor is lost. 
The milkweed which is now being culti¬ 
vated in gardens from seed, grows several times larger in the stalk 
than the wild variety, and the stalks in some cases are as large 
around as a quarter of a dollar; when cut for cooking about eight 
or ten inches of stalk are cut, with the large tender thick leaves on 
it. These stalks are cut into inch or inch and-a-half lengths and 
cooked for about the same time as asparagus, and served with 
butter. 
Anyone who desires to cultivate milkweed in his garden can do 
so very easily by simply 
planting the seeds very early 
in the spring. They will grow 
and flourish in the most bar¬ 
ren soil and without any at¬ 
tention, but if one desires 
giant stalks and leaves and 
an added tenderness and suc¬ 
culence, one had better fertilize the soil 
and weed and hoe the young plants. 
The lady whose picture is given here 
has made a great success of cultivating 
not only milkweed but dandelions, yel¬ 
low dock and several other weeds, for 
which she finds a ready market among 
her friends. She was led to the work 
through ill health. She was aenemic and 
no medicine seemed to do her any good, 
so on the advice of an old country doctor 
she went into a little Connecticut farming 
town in the spring and lived on tender 
greens and dairy products. She ate milk¬ 
weed, dock, dandelion, plantain, tender 
young horseradish leaves, wild mustard 
and nettles, not to mention clover, both 
tender leaves and blossoms, which she ate 
as salad and found them very peppery; 
in fact clover leaf salad eaten in a large 
quantity will take the skin off the throat. 
All these wild weed foods strengthened 
her so quickly and so perfectly that she 
made a study of cultivating them. She 
declares that we are just beginning to 
learn the wonders of weeds, for about 
our door-yards and pasture fences are to 
be found no end of delicious materials for 
tempting dishes. 
All these things may be kept at the ten¬ 
der age for the table by different planting periods, just as peas 
and string beans are. 
Although the milkweed is so common it may be well to state 
here that the variety Cornuti is understood in this article as the 
milkweed for cultivation. Its leaves are broader and softer than 
other kinds and its flowers a dull purple in large nodding umbels. 
The swamp milkweed ( incarnata ) is useless as a food, as its 
leaves are tough. It may be differentiated by its rose purple or 
flesh tinted blossoms, and 
lanceolate instead of oval 
leaves. 
Just try milkweed next 
spring and see for your¬ 
self how delicious it is. You 
will grow a plant that is dec¬ 
orative as well as useful. 
Seed-pods of the despised milkweed, 
which when cultivated makes an ex¬ 
cellent green for cooking or for salad 
