Bob has a giant pokeweed by his deck that has been getting bigger every year. The day we recorded this podcast it was eleven feet tall. Now just a few weeks later it is just shy of twelve feet. Join us as we discuss the pros and cons of having a pokeweed in your backyard.
Learn how to make ink from pokeweed berries that you can also use for watercolors at the fountain pen network or the New York Times.
My first recollection of the pokeweed plant was while I was living up in Central Ohio. During my early college years (late 60s), one of the hit songs on the local rock’n’roll AM radio station was a song by a southern country singer named Tony Joe White. The title of the song was “Polk Salad Annie”. While the central theme of the song was about a mean-spirited “straight-razor totin’ woman”, a large part of the song describes a staple of poor rural southern people – polk salad, aka “polk sallet”. Even though Tony Joe spelled it “polk” in his song’s lyrics, he was referring to the pokeweed plant. And, as this link attests [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polk_Salad_Annie], it was not eaten raw as a salad even though it was referred to as a salad. And while the leaves are clearly toxic as Bill warns, when you are poor, you find ways to make do.
Thanks for the additional information on the pokeweed salad. I remember the “Polk Salad Annie” song as a kid but I did not know the plant at that point.
Where is the pokeweed paint recipe?
This is one from The New York Times Style Magazine the title of the article is “A Southern Recipe for Natural Ink.”
1. Begin with approximately one cup of pokeberries. Smash them into pulp by hand using a mortar and pestle, or a smooth rock and a bowl. Strain the pulp, using cheesecloth or a trouser sock, into a bowl.
2. Into the bowl, add ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon vinegar, and stir.
3. Collect this mixture in a glass storage jar with a screwcap (baby food jars work great, as well as jelly jars). A funnel comes in handy with this step if your vessel is small.
4. Store in a cool, dry place. Use as you would watercolor ink, thinning if necessary. After creating your painting, you should spray it with an archival spray varnish with UV protection (found at most art supply stores) to give it a longer life.
Hi Bill, I was wondering what you were doing since retirement, now I know. Dotty sent me your pod link.
Pokeweed is one of my favorite plants. We had one come up when we had the farm on Shayler. An older lady at church said you could eat the leaves before it blossoms, so I went home and fix the leaves and ate them, it tasted like spinach.
Last year we had one come up at our condo so I let it grow and then cut it down. This year 2 came up and they are at least 10 feet tall. If you want to see them before I cut them down, come see us. The birds have really cleaned them up.