Edible weeds

ongoing

[djf]

I have decided to start a thread focusing on edible weeds. Many of the common plants we see everyday are edible, and while most are not hugely palatable or nutritious, a few are truly very good.

If you would like to post a recipe, please post recipes related to these plants only.

As always, an extreme amount of caution is advised. It's probably true that 90 percent or so of plants are actually edible, there is a small percentage that if you eat them, you WON'T have to worry about eating again!

Oleander comes to mind, it would take less than two leaves to kill an average person.

So be careful.

[LucyJo]

I just remembered wild plums too...good jam and jelly.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’m pooped! It was one of our busiest days since Christmas; foreshadowing of things to come, I hope!

I have tomorrow off, so I’m going to ‘The Garden Expo’ with Husband, Dad and my SIL, Kellie. Can’t wait! We’ll ditch Dad & Husband and Kel & I will get all ‘girly over gardening’ tomorrow. Husband likes to grow food, Dad just likes to mow grass, but there will be plenty of riding mowers and other gadgetry for them both to lust after. ;)

Actually, it’s partly a ‘spy mission’ to see what the competition in the area is up to; we haven’t had a booth in a few years as it’s not lucrative enough (because it falls when things are picking up for us at Jung’s) and frankly, the expo is sort of turning into a craft show. :(

BUT, I get to visit with my pal Shelley Ryan, ‘The Wisconsin Gardener’. She’s a HOOT! We got to be friends when I managed The Seed Savers Garden Store in town and we sold her videos and she did some episodes about us. I want to be her when I grow up. She’s our local ‘Martha Stewart’ but she rankles at that...she’s a total Farm Girl. :)

http://www.wpt.org/gardenexpo/index.cfm (Expo Link)

Shelley Ryan:

http://www.wpt.org/garden/details/index.cfm?content=host

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“They hurt when they land on you while you’re mowing the lawn under them.”

Black Walnuts dent the siding on your house when you’re mowing in the wrong direction and one gets flung against it. Always mow AWAY from the house. AWAY from the house!

We have FIFTEEN Black Walnut trees; we tell our Son, ‘When we’re gone, cut ‘em down and sell the wood. THAT’S your inheritance,’ LOL!

[Free Vulcan]

Mulberries. They grow wild here. Only elderberry makes a better jam.

[LucyJo]

Mayhaw grows wild in the South and makes wonderful jelly too.

[Battle Axe]

I eat a little higher off the hog than the bugs.

I know that in class we had chocolate covered ants and bees, but it was optional. And I certainly didn’t eat any.

The worker bees all have stingers and I would think one could become hypersensative by eating them. Try instead, royal jelly and bee pollen, products of the bees. And honey is really good too.

[fanfan]

.

[fanfan]

I eat a little higher off the hog than the bugs.

LOL, me too, but if I ever have to eat bugs to survive, I'd like to know which ones I can eat, and how to cook them.

I think I'd really prefer them cooked, if you know what I mean. With some seasoning maybe.

:-)

[BerryDingle]

Sweet Fern (Comptonia peregrina)

Edible Sweet Fern is most widely used to neutralize poison Ivy effects. Just boil up some green leaves in a sauce pan of water for a few minutes to release it's natural juices, let cool, remove the leaves with plenty of the water and rub it over the affected area. This is also a palatable tea which can also be made from dry leaves or flower tops used as a seasoning. Sweet Fern grows a small edible fruit.

Sweet Fern is used for several medicinal purposes besides treatment for Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, it relieves bee stings, nettle stings and draws out infections. Leaves can be configured into a poultice for toothaches and sprains and as a Parasiticide against ringworm.

Sweet Fern dried leaves are also used to line fruit baskets to preserve fruit longer. Crushed dried leaves repel insects, thrown on a campfire, it will drive mosquitoes away, or it can double as a repellent/incense.

Sweet Fern grows from Georgia to North Eastern Canada.

[metmom]

We have FIFTEEN Black Walnut trees; we tell our Son, ‘When we’re gone, cut ‘em down and sell the wood. THAT’S your inheritance,’ LOL!

No kidding. We cut down a black walnut that had storm damage and gave the trunk to a friend who does wood working. He was thrilled.

[Gabz]

The closest I come to eating bugs are “mudbugs” better known as crawfish or crawdads!!!!! And they definitely are eaten cooked (at least by me)

My husband swears the bravest person to have ever lived was the first person to eat a raw oyster, a delicacy affectionately called “snot on a rock” in our house :)

[MHGinTN]

I have a double beside my driveway. When I was putting the foundation in to build the house, a guy from Europe came up the drive to try and buy the pair. He told me they would come and take it down and dig up the roots, too. He worked for a lumber acquisition co. buying gunstock materials for expensive rifles and shotguns. He offered me three thousand for the pair. I like the shade too much to sell them. Besides, I was building on lot #1 of 'Walnut Hill' subdivision, and I named it. ;^)

[metmom]

If he offered you that much right off the top with all that work thrown in to boot, I’d hazard a guess that you could have gotten a lot more for them.

[MHGinTN]

I really don’t know. But I do know they grow fast from fallen ‘fruit’. I have one at the end of the covered porch which was no thicker than three inches sixteen years ago. Now, it’s taller than the house, eigh inches thick, and a ‘climbing runway’ for old crooked-tailed cat to come to the dormer windows over the porch. Another one started from a fallen nut at the front of the porch just eight years ago and is already taller than the house. Two on the other side of the driveway in fron of the house are shooting up at an almost alarming rate, but they’ll shade the garage front of the house in a couple of years!

[MHGinTN]

Our kind of thread, m’Lady!

[LucyJo]

Muscadines, summer grapes, Chinquapins, hickory nuts, beech nuts, wild gooseberry.

[patton]

Yeah, but for all of that, black walnut wood is worth a fortune.

[LucyJo]

Persimmons.

[patton]

Black walnut, sawn, is about $110/board foot (1 foot long, 1 foot wide, 1 inch thick).

Veneer grade black walnut is about three times that.

[metmom]

We have tons of black walnuts in CNY.

They’re messy trees for all their value.