Wild plants

rockhound · #21 03/29/12, 05:41 AM

Speaking of ramps and their short harvest season, I would say that's the main limitation with wild plants, they have a short harvest time. Knowing what is growing at and around your place is a good idea. You can tell what time of year it is by what's blooming. Then there's some things like dandelion that bloom for a long time and keep re-growing. A dehydrator is good for all those leaves and medicinal things that have a short grow time, but you might need it all year. Dark bottles with labels are better for storage than clear. I like to get in a good supply of maypop (passiflora) leaves, they make a good tea alone or combined and real relaxing in the evening.

Forerunner · #22 03/29/12, 06:32 AM

I've collected a bit of a library of books just in re edible and medicinal wild plants.
I started when I was ten, sending off to a wild/back to the land book company called the "Adobe Hacienda", later referring to themselves as the "Aspen Cabin", from an ad in my Pop's Mother Earth News™ magazines. I had money from mowing lawns and raising rabbits.....and selling dew worms.

The well-illustrated guide that I have found myself referring to the most, over the years, has been Wildflowers and Weeds, by Booth Courtenay and James Zimmerman, ISBN0-442-21704-8.

That said, the relevant Petersen's Guides are excellent.
For nuts and bolts information, I have enjoyed Oliver Perry Medsger's, Edible Wild Plants, ISBN 978-0020809104

Euell Gibbons has always been one of my favorites. My walk with his wisdom and wit began when my father brought home for me one day many, many years ago (it may have been my first) Stalking the Wild Asparagus.
Imagine my euphoria, just a few years ago, my own old copy dog-eared and fragile, when I stumbled upon not only Asparagus, but Stalking the Healthful Herbs and Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop..... all three in mint condition at a large flea market in Missouri.

For those really interested in diving in to the spirit and mentality of wilderness living, Tom Brown, Jr. and his myriads of published works, are rather the epitome.
Start with The Tracker, his first, and go from there.
He has, along with his real life accounts, a full line of field guides, including edible and medicinal wild plants, as well as tracking, living with the earth, urban/inner city survival, wilderness survival, and others.

Lastly, but certainly not least, of all the other volumes I have, there is Thomas Elias' and Peter Dykeman's, Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide, an extremely well-illustrated edition that I have found myself referring to, time and again, ISBN 978-0806974880.

ronbre · #23 03/29/12, 10:38 AM

Raven, I'm putting in 2 persimmon trees this year so would very much appreciate if you would PM me your recipe for the persimmons ..although it will be years before they bear I'll copy it down..thanks

solidwoods · #24 03/29/12, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinknal

You get 3 crops from milkweed; Young shoots, flowers, and pods. 4 crops if you have a use for the mature seed pods.

Howdy.
5 crops if you count beauty as a crop, Monarch butterfly's.
And FMI what could the mature seed pods be used for?
And I wonder what the milkweeds sap is used for? (everything on the earth has a purpose)
jim

For My Information

Danaus29 · #25 03/29/12, 02:04 PM

The sap can be used to treat wounds. Supposedly it kills warts. It is a source of latex.
The dried fluff was used to stuff life jackets in WWII and it can be used to fill out stuffed animals or make pillows.

The heroic milkweed - CSMonitor.com

ldc · #26 03/29/12, 02:14 PM

Cliff, how do you preserve persimmon leaves? Can you use the ones from orchard persimmons, or do they have to be the native ones? Can you preserve the leaves like grape leaves? The orchard trees have leafed out early here this year. Thanks! ldc

Cliff · #27 03/29/12, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ldc

Cliff, how do you preserve persimmon leaves? Can you use the ones from orchard persimmons, or do they have to be the native ones? Can you preserve the leaves like grape leaves? The orchard trees have leafed out early here this year. Thanks! ldc

Pick them, air dry (plenty of air circulation, stir them pretty often, no sun) then just stuff them in a bag.

I've read that they are best in mid June - then the leaves are mature but the fruit hasn't started drawing lots of energy yet. I didn't find out about them till later than that last year. I harvested leaves into the fall and they still tasted good and worked well for allergies.

I doubt variety would make much of a difference. I didn't come across anything about that in my reading but you could look it up. We have tons of wild persimmon trees here so that's what I used. Just be sure whatever trees you pick from haven't been sprayed, wouldn't want to poison yourself.

jcatblum · #28 03/30/12, 12:47 AM

Found a copy of stalking the wild asparagus at goodwill today. Inside is even a family circle article from 3/73 titled exploring for wild food. And a page from Boys Life July 1975 titled live off the land with edible plants. Pretty good find for 99c. I enjoy the book mentions ways to prepare each item. However, a nice foraging book full of color photos is still on my wish list.

ChristieAcres · #29 03/30/12, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

I've collected a bit of a library of books just in re edible and medicinal wild plants.
I started when I was ten, sending off to a wild/back to the land book company called the "Adobe Hacienda", later referring to themselves as the "Aspen Cabin", from an ad in my Pop's Mother Earth News™ magazines. I had money from mowing lawns and raising rabbits.....and selling dew worms.

The well-illustrated guide that I have found myself referring to the most, over the years, has been Wildflowers and Weeds, by Booth Courtenay and James Zimmerman, ISBN0-442-21704-8.

That said, the relevant Petersen's Guides are excellent.
For nuts and bolts information, I have enjoyed Oliver Perry Medsger's, Edible Wild Plants, ISBN 978-0020809104

Euell Gibbons has always been one of my favorites. My walk with his wisdom and wit began when my father brought home for me one day many, many years ago (it may have been my first) Stalking the Wild Asparagus.
Imagine my euphoria, just a few years ago, my own old copy dog-eared and fragile, when I stumbled upon not only Asparagus, but Stalking the Healthful Herbs and Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop..... all three in mint condition at a large flea market in Missouri.

For those really interested in diving in to the spirit and mentality of wilderness living, Tom Brown, Jr. and his myriads of published works, are rather the epitome.
Start with The Tracker, his first, and go from there.
He has, along with his real life accounts, a full line of field guides, including edible and medicinal wild plants, as well as tracking, living with the earth, urban/inner city survival, wilderness survival, and others.

Lastly, but certainly not least, of all the other volumes I have, there is Thomas Elias' and Peter Dykeman's, Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide, an extremely well-illustrated edition that I have found myself referring to, time and again, ISBN 978-0806974880.

How wonderful to have almost a lifelong passion for wild edibles

Great books you have listed, too. Here is another one, that appeals especially for those who are starting out and wish to prepare meals, not just make salads...

"Edible Wild Plants," by John Kallas, PhD. He shines when it comes to the ID of the wild edible and he presented everything he prepared with then in a manner that made you want to run out and go after those wild edibles!

On using wild edibles, Nettles mostly. I drink Nettle tea, and make fertilizer out of it. While at a friends house, for a massage (barter) & to pick up a dozen eggs (barter also), she served me Dandelion Root Tea

Yes, it was very tasty and now I'll be out there digging up the roots to dehydrate & roast myself... We have wild Blueberries, 3 types of wild Blackberries, Huckleberries, and a few other types of berries. In Spring, Morels are out, then Fall, an array of edible mushrooms are out there for the taking.

Seeing this thread, prompted me to pull out that book, so it is about time to start harvesting wild edibles...

naturelover · #30 03/30/12, 02:14 AM

Anyone who's in the north west might like this site - it includes pictures: Edible Wild Plants of the Pacific Northwest

The guide covers wild edible plants of British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, the Rocky Mountains and Western Canada.

The list only contains "safe" plants - those that are easy to identify and have no deadly poisonous look-alikes.

All plant parts described as being edible raw are also edible (and often more palatable) when cooked.

.

Rita · #31 03/30/12, 09:50 AM

Forerunner, Hang on to that Edible Wild Plants by Elia and Dykeman. Went to Amazon and they had 3 for $437 and others for $69!!

Jokarva · #32 03/30/12, 10:40 AM

Certified Organic Seed From Wild Garden Seed

If you don't have the wild edibles in your yard you're looking to try this site sells seeds....they have several things I'd like to try and hopefully they really do grow like weeds.

Cliff · #33 03/30/12, 11:49 AM

Just remembered that besides eating young dock leaves you can eat their seeds - of which they make a huge amount of as anyone who has them in their garden knows

I saw a recipe recently for making crackers out of them. Also, yellow dock root is medicinal.
And as I just posted on the dandelion thread someone just started, we eat the dandelion blossoms. They are good and very filling. They have a slight bitterness that reminds me of tahini. I guess they will probably get more bitter as it gets hotter outside, this is the first time we've eaten so many of them, we'll see. We don't fry them like the old timers did because we don't fry anything anymore. Anybody ever had them cooked any other way?

Cliff · #34 03/30/12, 12:16 PM

Remembered another one I haven't tried yet. Thistle stalks. I saw a youtube vid of a guy peeling them with a pocket knife and eating them. To peel he just ran the knife at a right angle up and down the stalk, looked very easy. I will try that one later, just noticed some of them here are sending up stalks.
I tried that the other day with young blackberry shoots as I'd read the american indians used to eat them. They had a good bit of tannic acid in them but they were edible. Didn't try cooking them.

ETA the guy on the vid was picking young thistle stalks.

Danaus29 · #35 03/30/12, 01:06 PM

I think I have that Edible Wild Plants book in a box somewhere around here. For that kind of money I better go look for it.

I'll have to check out the thistle vid. I have a bunch from where I couldn't get them pulled last year.

Cliff · #36 03/31/12, 12:33 PM

Ok tried the thistle stalks. They do peel real easy just by scraping. They're fairly sweet, juicy, with no offensive flavor at all. Not bitter.

Toasted a bunch of dandelion blossoms yesterday in a dry pretty hot pan. They were good. Toasty flavor but still moist inside the bud part. Sorta nutty reminiscent of tahini like I mentioned before.

Need to get into my garden in the next couple of days and try to round up all the jerusalem artichoke sprouts (haha.) They are all over the place and out of control. Our neighbors house on one side of the property is very close to the fence line - we have about a 12 foot deep strip between the property fence and our garden fence - thinking about turning that into a semi-wild ja bed. They make a wonderful privacy screen and make tons of food. They are pretty much a mulch em and forget em kind of plant.

motdaugrnds · #37 03/31/12, 09:52 PM

...............Now to integrate that knowledge into some semblance of order in the gardens will be the next step................

Cliff, I've been researching wild plants now for about 3 yrs, sending samples of my findings to the local ag lab and posting pics of some in here. I'm presently in the process of "organizing" some in my garden area. I propagated some Plantain, Dock, Poke Salet & Lambsquarter last year; and they did real well. This year I've added a row of Giant Nettle along side the fencing not too far from the Rugosa Roses...both being thorny.

I've, also, discovered if I let the Evening Primrose grow in my garden, the bad bugs will eat those instead of my veggies.

salmonslayer · #38 03/31/12, 10:13 PM

We are with you Cliff. We use dried Goldenrod as a tea and in a tincture (thanks Sparticle), thistle, dandelion, dock etc. When I was stationed in Alaska we had a Tlingit lady make some sort of salve out of devils club that greatly eased by arthritis (Naturelover would probably know what that was).

We do a lot of foraqing and thoroughly enjoy walking our small property and identifying things. One last note, we grow Nasturtiums mostly for the peppery taste of the flowers in our salads...not for their beautiful flowers!!

wogglebug · #39 04/01/12, 03:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salmonslayer

we grow Nasturtiums mostly for the peppery taste

Peppery taste of leaves, too. Peppery nasturtium leaves make a marvellous addition to a salad - if pushed they could make a salad on their own.
Violets, viola, pansy make great salad greens as well - leaves and flowers all.

Mid Tn Mama · #40 04/01/12, 04:29 AM

I always post these in the tightwad tips thread when I do them....
This time of year, I make poke "salet". You pick poke when small before they get purple (after that they are poisonous, esp the berries)You have to boil them a couple times and throw out the water. Last simmer, add some fatback, salt and pepper and eat like greens.

Also:
Cook couple pieces of bacon in the skillet, remove bacon, saute green onion and tender dandelion leaves, make a hole in the middle: scramble an egg, add a sweet and sour dressing of:1/4 cup apple cider vinegar with 1/8 cup sugar. Crumble bacon on top.

There was someone here who would dig chickory (small purple flowers) dry the roots, roast them and sell chickory coffee at the farmer's market. She said she always sold out because it was good and a novelty.

Thanks Cliff and everyone.