Bed of Galinsoga

Galinsoga (galinsoga parviflora) is often called gallant soldier, and also quickweed, or potato weed, or by many other common names. It’s native to South America and was brought to Europe, where it’s now pervasive, in the 1700’’s.  Its presence in North America may either be up from Mexico or brought back from Europe.

Galinsoga is named after the botanist and physician to the Queen of Spain, Ignacio Mariano Martinez de Galinsoga, who is also remembered for demonstrating scientifically that ladies’ corsets are unhealthy to the wearer.

Quickweed – Galinsoga – Gallant Soldier

Galinsoga is widely used around the world as both a culinary and a medicinal plant, but it is mostly only loathed by farmers and gardeners in the U.S. References from the agricultural universities and many mainstream articles are mainly hate mail explaining why galinsoga should not be allowed to exist. The articles are nearly all about control. The weed gives larger organic growers problems because it can be very difficult to control without intensive hand weeding or chemical intervention.

However, galinsoga is now sharing a growing Interest to foragers, home gardeners, and small food growers.  You can find lots of internet references with uses and recipes.

My unorthodox approach to encouraging galinsoga in the garden is based on an assumption that I’m going to have weeds no matter what. I have a lot of open soil and weeds are going to sprout.  I could do more mulching and implement other controls, but I’ve got hand weeding down pat.  For me, it’s the easier approach. So, if I can influence which weeds I have to deal with, I’ll take galinsoga over any other. Galinsoga is about the easiest weed in the garden to pull by hand or to control with hand hoeing. Seedlings and smaller plants are easily scaped off with a hoe. Larger plants and their roots are easily pulled from all but the toughest soils. Even very large plants can usually be pulled without difficulty.

I encourage the growth and re-seeding of galinsoga and deal with the outcome.  It is too easy to grow. Its self-seeding ability is scary and it will put out several generations through the growing season. It’s known as quickweed for a reason.  A single plant takes up a lot of space as it matures, so the plant crowds out other weeds, although it’s not 100% effective, as grasses and dandelions are eager to try to co-exist below a galinsoga cover.

Once in your garden, galinsoga is almost always present, but frost quickly kills this tropical annual.  It puts out a huge volume of green material, so I find it a great plant for my compost pile (you will not read this in any other article about galinsoga or compost). I’m not particularly encouraging others to follow my galinsoga example, but it works for me.

Now I’m going to have to try to eat it.