Dandelions - Tis the Season - Get them while you can!

Dandelions are hated by urban green grass fanatics and loved by those that see their real benefits.  As part of my work I often do 'farm calls' and love to talking to farmers.  While on a recent visit we got talking about the 'new crop' dandelions and 'how hard they are to grow!', yes it appears if you want them to grow they just might not.  The new crop for dandelions has a fairly good future market potential with some toting it as a cancer cure - see CBC article on it. So to give you a heads up - this is the time of year to dig them up (or in the fall after the second crop appears and flowers die), clean the roots up (see a clean root and dirty root pictured at left), roast them in a oven and then grind them up to make a tea.  The tea of dandelion coffee doesn't really have much taste and please don't add white sugar as that would really defeat your goal in a healthy drink...local honey maybe...since Canadian honey doesn't have corn syrup added to it, like some imports do.

Uses for Dandelions:
- salad greens (when they are young and not yet budding flowers_
- flowers minus the green leaves for making dandelion wine, jam, etc.
- roots for roasting making into to tea.

Here is  a great website to discuss the Health Benefits of Dandelions: that is really worth the read.  A gift from nature - there for us.