Hello Everyone,

After lurking around the forums for almost a year I realized many of you might be able to help, so I finally signed up

I've been working with raw land for a couple of years in the low desert area of Arizona. My primary focus so far has been soil building and water harvesting but I keep trying to grow kitchen garden stuff too. In the past six months or so I've started to see nice progress, but now I have all kinds of plants sprouting up! I'm thrilled but I want to eat some too

These first pictures I suspect are things I tried planting in the past. They're familiar but I don't want to eat them until I know for sure what they are.



the above I initially thought was flat leaf parsley.



It is now putting out flowers like this.



This third picture makes me think of mustard. The leaves look very similar to my Shepard's purse but there are no "purse" pods. My SP is all blooming white where this is yellow, and SP doesn't have the wavy arm stems at the top.



This last one is curly leafed and pretty. Familiar somehow but I can't place It. Its currently thriving under a soda bottle dome where I recently put Tomato & Basil. I know its not either of those.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

(PS. I'm sorry, I don't know how to size the images to fit this board.)

First one could be Mallow or a Cucurbit -- can you take pictures with your hand cradling the leaves so we can see how big they are?

Last one is parsley. Yum yum!

Yay more Parsley! I thought it was too early, thank you

Additional pictures of the first:



Largest leaves are only about 2-2 1/2 inches. And the plants are about 8-9 inches tall. Mainly upright. Not spreading or sending out tendrils like my melons and cucumbers do.



This pic shows a tiny white flower. I can't tell if these are coming before or after the little pods. Could it be okra? Seems really small for that too though.

thanks so much for the help!

If I had to guess I'd call that Mallow, the weed. But I'm not very good at ID, maybe someone else will help.

Hi Kathy, that last one with the little white flower is common mallow. I have them all over my front yard right now (I'm in Albuquerque). They grow pretty quickly, and if you pull one out it has a big tap root. When I wait too long that tap root is so hefty it's too strong for me to pull it. I do leave some of them just to provide cover for the bare spots, but often it wants to crowd out the stuff I'm purposefully trying to grow.

In your original post, the middle photo- I snapped some photos of something in my front yard that may be the same thing and I was going to post my own thread but I'll throw it on here. So- it likes the southwest desert conditions. It's growing in the same vacinity as the mallow- I only these two plants in my front yard, which is on the north side of my house, but not really in the shade of the house. It's growing in between the stepping stones so it's probably taking advantage of the extra water and warmth of the stones. It looks kind of like dandelion, except its flower is more like a mustard. Is this what you have too?

Sandra, yes, my yellow ones look just like your first picture. I'm hoping they are an edible but no one seems to know yet. I haven't seen dandelions in years so I can't say if they're similar, but the leaves look just like my shepard's purse.

Mallow! Thank you both! Another green for my salads I've been chopping and dropping them so the spinach and lettuce can get light. I'll start spreading the extra now and see if it'll take hold on the other acres.

Well, I did some searching in online plant databases and found this page: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/broad_gallery_rosette.html.

It seems like our plant has to be one of these!

In Romania plant is treated as a weed and not edible.

Those plants in my yard are maturing and the flowers have lengthened. It looks like they are London Rocket.

http://www.fireflyforest.com/flowers/2360/sisymbrium-irio-london-rocket/

Sandra thank you! Those look just like mine as well. I came across Yellow Rocket last week but the pics weren't quite right. London rocket matches exactly. They are part of the mustard family and another edible. I'm loving this

It may take me years to identify everything that's cropping up out here but it sure is fun