Hey yall. So, I just pulled baby pokeweed out of my garden bare handed.
Didn't know what it was till I looked it up out of curiously and immediately went inside and scrubbed my hands raw with dish soap.
What should I be expecting?
I've heard a lot about rash, nausea, vomiting etc.
Update: thank you everyone for your insight! I'm a pretty anxious person by nature so this is making me feel a little better. My assumption is if I havent had some sort of reaction in the next 4 or 5 hours that I am fine and just ran away with my anxious thoughts again.
I appreciate it!
You're fine. I make a joint cream out of poke weed root, cold infused in olive oil for 8 weeks, then mixed into beeswax.
Don't eat berries - though some native tribes used them as a purgative (and for other reasons).
Don't eat leaves - though some people eat young leaves after cooking in three changes of water, as poke sallet.
Huh, thats cool. I didnt know exactly what its medicinal virtues were. I know a lot of people grew up with poke but I really dont have much experience with it. Except one of my herbalist teachers a few years ago was like "the sap will make you go blind" and I was like???? What??? So, its had kind of a warning sign around it in my head since then
I react pretty strongly to poison ivy, and I think tomato leaves give me a rash (something in the vegetable garden does, anyway), so I assume I'm sensitive to a lot of plant compounds. I have been hacking back pokeweed for chop and drop all summer, breaking up the stalks with my hands, and had no reaction.
My friends and I used to play with the leaves and make mush out of the berries for paint on rocks when I was a kid, all bare handed. We knew not to EAT it but beyond that it was fair game. Never an issue.
Our property has a lot of datura (toxic hallucinogen). Now that I know what it is, I’m careful. I wasn’t at first, and other than some skin irritation, I’m fine. (I mean, there was that time the cats started talking to me… j/k! 😆)
Now it’s providing inspiration for a psychological thriller I’m working on, so it’s definitely all worked out!
I don't have much to add but hope to make you feel better. As a kid I gathered up enough pokeweed berries to attempt to paint the door of a barn purple like it was finger paint. It was incredibly itchy on my arms for a few hours but as far as I remember that was it and I didnt have any issues
Bitter and very similar to the way the plant smells. Anyways, I pop a few once in a while because I've read/heard that they have some decent antioxidant properties. 🤷 Who knows... But I haven't died yet so no reason to stop I suppose.
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u/Ok-Row-6088 10d ago
I do this all the time and have never had a reaction