Edible Leaf Crops

This is a subject I just won't shut up about already, I know :)

Like last year, one of our resolutions for this year ahead is to eat more greens...more and more we're realizing just how important they are in our daily eating and in our planning for the longterm in  how we intend to feed ourselves with the highest level of nutrition.

Well, we have NO crops going at the moment, except for some cuttings that are rooting in vials of water on my kitchen counter and a few things under wraps at the moment outdoors (we could be growing plenty of things right now outdoors, but are just going with our existing perennials, most of which got toasted in the freezes).

I found this link about leaf crops, and since we really enjoyed our experiments this past summer with the moringa leaves and chaya leaves, I thought it would be worth a look to see what other leaves are overlooked, highly nutritious edibles...take a peek at the link, since it covers different growing zones.

I can list some right offhand, most of which we have yet to try on a larger scale and some which we've sampled...think of them as unlikely foods that oftentimes are a second crop from plants that bear more familiar foods:

1.  Cowpea (black eyed peas and that family) young leaves
2.  Okra young leaves
3.  Sweet Potato leaves (cooked, not of the true yam family)
4.  Pumpkin and squash  young leaves
5.  Moringa
6.  Chaya/Pig Chaya leaves ( cooked only, never raw)
7.  Clover leaves
8.  Dollarweed leaves
9.  Amaranth leaves

Doing the odd internet search during down time has reaped some interesting finds as far as dual-purpose plants.  Let me know what leaves you find that we never knew were edible...there are areas of the world outside the US in which these optimal foods are eaten regularly and the memory of their use is still contemporary...