Foraging Manchester: Gill-Over-The-Ground

Editor’s Note – If you are not familiar with a plant, consult an edible plant guide and/or an expert before you eat it. These articles are intended to introduce these edibles but not to be used as the sole source for identifying them.

I’m sure you’ve seen it creeping over the ground through your garden or through your yard when your grass gets long. That is how it got one of it’s names “creeping charlie”. It’s also known as “ground ivy” and “gill-over-the-ground”. While this member of the mint family is used as a salad green by many foragers, it is as an herbal tea, “gilly tea”, that it gets its most use in our house. In fact my children call it “tea mint”.

It is fairly easy to identify and only is easily confused with one of weed you are likely to encounter in your yard, common mallow, which is completely edible itself (although probably makes a less tasty tea). Gill-over the ground has rounded leaves, a square stem and blueish-purple tubular flowers that grow in the leaf axises. When you break the stem, it smells like mint. Common mallow has small pink flowers, a round stem and does not smell like mint.

Gilly tea tastes like mildly herby mint tea. It is especially good sweetened with honey. We usually pick some lemon balm and spearmint out of the herb garden to go in with it, but it is perfectly good on its own. I’ve made half gallons up at a time and chilled it for refreshing ice tea during the summer.

To make tea, pick a handful of leaves, stems, and flowers. Wash well. Cram in tea pot. Pour boiling water over and steep for 5 min. Pour and enjoy!

The one concern to note with gill-over-the-ground is that it contains minute amounts of pulegone, the chemical found in much larger quantities in pennyroyal, a relative in the mint family that is known to be toxic. However, gill-over-the-ground has been consumed by humans — apparently safely — for thousands of years. Pulegone also is found in peppermint which is consumed in mass quantities. For more information, you can read about it on Wikipedia or visit this site. Remember, always be sure of your identification, wash what you have foraged before you eat it, and just like with any food be aware that a small number of people may have an allergic reaction to it.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.