My Grandma has been gardening for the past millennium or so. She grew up on a farm in the small village of Contessa Entellina in north-west Sicily. They grew olives and wheat for market, and grew just about everything else they used. I love to listen to her talk about the grape vines and fig trees and especially the huge vegetable garden my great grandfather would tend.

They were very frugal and conservative with the resources they had over there in Contessa Entellina. One of the things that has stuck out to me as being really cool is the many different ways they would use common vegetable plants.

Whenever my grandma comes to visit us, she spends the majority of the time visiting with the vegetable garden instead. I usually follow her around, because I always learn something new. Once, last year, she went out to the garden with a basket and a knife and started cutting away at my Cucuzzi vines.
“What are you doing, Maw Maw?” I asked.
“You’ll see” was the reply. I watched her cut the tips of the rampant vines, just where the young tender where starting to sprout out.

She gathered a slew of the young leaves, brought them inside the house, and steamed them with just a little butter, salt and pepper. She then put a heaping pile of the greens on my plate for lunch.
One of the best darn plates of greens I ever had. And from a plant that I wasn’t even growing for greens! Down here we call that lagniappe, baby.

Since that time I’ve always been on the lookout for alternative ways to use the vegetables I’m growing.

Broccoli- Young, tender broccoli leaves are very edible, and quite good raw in salads or as a cooked green. Old leaves are tough and bitter with a hard stem that is not at all palatable. This is a good use for broccoli during  the time you’re waiting for the plants to produce heads. As long as the plants are healthy, they shouldn’t be set back by taking a few leaves off now and then. According to Wikipedia, the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, the leaves have much more beta-carotene than the heads. Broccolli raab is probably tastier, but if you’re not growing raab then this is the next best thing.

Curcurbits- The young leaves of nearly all Curcurbit plants, like the aforementioned Cucuzzi, are edible. If you have a squash or cucumber vine that’s growing out of control, this can be an effective method to keep it down. The male flowers of squash plants are edible, as anyone who has enjoyed deep fried squash flower can attest to. Just be sure to leave a few for pollination! If you’re drowning in sponges after a successful Luffa gourd crop, the immature fruits can be cooked like zucchini and no one’s the wiser.

Watermelon- The rind of watermelon can be pickled or used in chutney. I learned recently from Egypt Farm that the seeds can be roasted and eaten.

Okra- Okra leaves are edible and when cooked remind me of Kale. If you can, get a hold of Abelmoschus moschata, whose leaves are more palatable than regular Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus.) The root is also supposed to be edible, but I’ve never tried it. According to PFAF it’s very fibrous.

Sweet Potato- This whole darn plant is edible in one way or another. While I haven’t tried it yet, the young shoots are supposed to be tasty and are used often in Namul dishes. I recently learned from The Slow Cook that the leaves are tasty as well.

If you have alternative uses for the veggies in your garden, let me know about it! Everything you can make a meal with from you garden is one less meal coming out of the stressed world food system.