Lambsquarters (Chenopodium album), also called goosefoot, is a common weed found all over the world. It has the advantage of being edible and in fact, quite nutritious. It’s very low in saturated fat and cholesterol and a good source of niacin, folate, iron, magnesium and phosphorus, plus a very good source of dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, calcium, potassium, copper and manganese. And it’s delicious, tasting a lot like spinach.
But before you decide to embrace lambsquarters in your vegetable garden, think twice, for it has a dark side … in fact, a few dark sides.
First of all, it’s incredibly invasive: due to its early emergence and rapid growth rate, lambsquarters can outcompete many garden crops. It has, for example, been shown to produce crop losses of up to 13% in corn, 25% in soybeans and 48% in sugar beets at an average plant distribution.
Worse yet, it’s the host of a huge number of plant diseases that could easily be spread to your vegetables by sap-sucking insects, including:
- Alfalfa mosaic virus;
- Barley mosaic virus;
- Bean yellow mosaic virus;
- Beet curly top;
- Beet mosaic virus;
- Clover yellow vein virus;
- Cucumber mosaic virus;
- Cucurbit yellow stunting disorder virus;
- Eggplant mosaic virus;
- Hops mosaic virus;
- Lettuce mosaic virus;
- Mulberry ring spot virus
- Pepper ring spot virus;
- Potato ring spot virus;
- Potato viruses X, M and S;
- Primrose mosaic virus;
- Prunus ring spot virus;
- Soybean mosaic virus;
- Squash mosaic virus;
- Tobacco etch virus;
- Tomato ring spot virus;
- Turnip mosaic virus;
- Watermelon mosaic virus.
- Wisteria mosaic virus.
One study by Elizabeth T. Maynard at the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University showed that a single lambsquarters plant in a 10-square-foot (1-square-meter) plot would be expected to reduce the yield of squash by 10 to 15%.
Oh, and did I mention its lightweight pollen is also a cause of hay fever?
In other words, lambsquarters is like the typhoid Mary of the plant world: harvest it from the wild if you want, but you probably really don’t want to grow it in your vegetable bed!