eat the colonizers

Quackgrass, aka couchgrass, aka Elymus repens: (this little mumbletyswear) has long been my sworn foe. Only recently did I learn its roots and grains are edible. i'm sorry, you can eat WHAT Close up, quackgrass reminds me of corn: a tough central green stalk with leaf blades that fold away at intervals, sharp and fibrous. (Aside: seriously, go look at a field of corn sometime, covering the edges of your vision to hide anything that might give you a sense of scale. Corn is grass. It's just mutantly large grass. It's grass that has been exposed to the green ooze in the Ninja Turtle movies. It's terrifying.) But quackgrass doesn't root like corn. Corn stalks put out several shallow roots, grasping the dirt like mangroves. Quackgrass grows from long, rubbery white strings underground - its rhizomes. The rhizomes can be a meter long or more. My chickens will eat smaller pieces, but the long ones they leave lying on top of the soil. Quackgrass is quick to part with its stems and leaves.…