Lambs Quarters

Lamb's quarters is the weed that shows up uninvited in every vegetable garden, and it's worth eating before you pull it. It grows fast, comes up in huge numbers wherever the soil has been turned over, and tastes a lot like spinach, only milder.

It is a close cousin of quinoa, and you can see the family resemblance in its seed heads.

How to spot it

• Leaves are roughly diamond-shaped, like a goose's foot, with wavy or toothed edges.
• A white, mealy dust covers the young leaves and growing tips. Rub it and it comes off. Splash water on it and the water beads up and rolls away.
• Stems stand upright and branch, and often have red or purple streaks.
• Flowers are tiny green balls clustered at the branch tips. There are no petals to speak of.

What it's good for

The young leaves and tips are the prize. Eat a few raw in a salad, or cook a big pile of them the way you would spinach. They're packed with vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and a surprising amount of protein.

Later in the year the plant makes thousands of small black seeds. You can cook them like quinoa or grind them into flour, though collecting enough takes patience.

Don't confuse it with

Young nightshade plants sometimes grow in the same beds. They have no white dust on their tips, so check for that powder before you pick.