(catchy music) (light music) - So you might be asking yourself, "Why on earth is Nicole sitting next to the burdock plant?"

There is so much more to this amazing plant than meets the eye.

But like I've always said in my own learnings, you don't know what you don't know until you actually know.

This plant showed up in my yard and it was my dad who informed me, "That's burdock, get rid of it."

But I foster native plants, I incorporate them, and then I learn about those plants and I am so glad this plant showed up.

So first off, yes, we see this plant as maybe a nuisance, or you know, the burrs, you go walking, you have 'em sticking to your shoes, your pants, your clothes.

But the magic in this plant, even though the whole thing is edible, the magic lies in the root.

The leaves are a bit bitter, but I find that with most wild greens anyway.

And there's ways to tame bitterness or embrace it and incorporate it.

I use a lot of bitter greens in my salsas.

The stem, also edible, and it kind of resembles rhubarb.

And you can eat this raw or cooked, same with the leafy greens.

If I was gonna eat the stem, I would take it home and then just give it a rinse.

But then just take like a potato peeler or just a knife and gently peel away just the outer layer.

And once you get in there, you can see it's moist, it's green.

Treat it like you would asparagus or a vegetable if you're gonna prepare it.

What I go for is the root.

You never know what size root you're gonna get.

And you wanna dig about three to five inches away from the base of the plant, and you don't wanna break the stem, or at least you wanna try not to break the stem.

Turns out I did break the stem, but that happens.

I don't like to waste, and so usually I will give away the stems and the leaves to folks that would like to utilize those.

But the root, it's considered a super food and it actually contains 102 different minerals.

This root is incredibly, incredibly healthy.

I'm just gonna again, take a potato peeler or a knife, and you can see the nice white, fleshy interior of the root.

And I'm actually gonna treat it like I would a carrot or a parsnip.

Some people say it tastes earthy or kind of sort of like soil.

I don't know that I necessarily can detect a distinct taste coming out of it.

I know I like them.

I know they're good for me.

Sometimes, I will use it as like a textural component.

It reminds me of like a bean sprout or a water chestnut.

And it does take on the flavor of whatever you're using it in.

So it's good in stir fries, it's great in soups.

It is considered a vegetable.

In Japan, they have been harvesting this plant for millennia, and they understand that it is of great medicinal and nutritional value and it is commercially sold as goboo.

Behold, the root of the burdock plant.

Also very important, they have a lifespan of about three years.

I'm gonna guess this beauty is probably in its second year.

Next year will double or triple in size, and it gets really pretty flowers on it too, which then become the burrs.

But this is no longer harvestable.

What I look for is the first-year plant, or if it is in its second year, it has a flower stalk but it is not flowering yet.

It looks like rhubarb, it's low to the ground, and there is not the flowering parts yet there.

So people always say harvest burdock in the fall of its first year or the spring of its second year.

I've never really followed that rule, but I break a lot of rules in foraging anyway.

Maybe I don't love rules.

So many of the plants that I harvest, they have so many different benefits, nutritional value, medicinal value.

But really what I'm gonna say is with any plant, dig deeper and read because every plant holds so much value, dig deeper and read because every plant holds so much value, and you'll be surprised.

The burdock plant.