What wild plants do you collect?

General Gardening
#21

I harvest lots of mushrooms and wild berries as well as many of the weed greens mentioned above. One spring shoot that is very tasty and not often taken is false solomon seal, it makes a nice steamed vegetable early in the season

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#22

Garlic mustard

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#23

whats a cattail and how do you use them?

#24

they are the plants found around ponds and in wet ditches. the root bulbs and small shoots are edible. never tried them but supposedly very good.

#25

In Colorado and finally learning some edibles around here. Many grow in my yard which is convenient.

Mertensia franciscana
Fireweed
Mushrooms if we’re counting fungi
Currants
Raspberries
Chokecherries (i eat em raw! tangy!)

#26

Anyone have a wild plum recipe? Or does anyone make fruit leathers and can tell me how to do that without a dehydrator?

#27

I have had fireweed honey. It is quite good.

#28

You will find several plum jelly recipes here:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can7_jam_jelly.html
I haven’t made wild plum jelly for several years, but the plums made it through the spring frosts this year, so there is some in our future!
My notes say to try the recipe without added pectin, as they have plenty pectin to jell without needing to add any. My first batch with pectin added came out extremely firm, as in NOT spreadable!
Here is info on making fruit leather:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/dry/csu_leathers_jerkies.pdf
This turned out really really good. It is fun making fruit blends If you have other fruits to add to the plums, or excess applesauce from your trees
 Basic method is to cook or steam lightly until fruit softens. Remove the pits, then run the remainder through a food mill to remove the skins. The skins can be very astringent, depending on the variety, and can reduce the quality of the leather if not removed. Acidify, add sweetener and spices to taste, and purĂ©e. Spread parchment or plastic wrap on a rimmed cookie sheet. Spread a really thin layer of purĂ©e on each sheet. Dry in oven on lowest setting, crack the door to keep temp around 145. Keep checking until it is dry and pliable, ~4+ hours. Sometimes I flip it over on a new piece of parchment, pull the first piece off, and put it back in. It helps in drying both sides more evenly. I prefer parchment as it doesn’t melt, like plastic wrap does. :wink: Good luck!

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#29

The Japanese eat lots of Burdock roots. How do you CLEAN them and prepare them?

#30

I just wash off root veggies. Hand scrub dirt off. I like the skin on so i dont peel generally. Maybe a small veggie scrubber would do? Tho skin of roots seem to hold a lot of flavor

It IS used widely in asian foods. I suppose it can be used same as a water chestnut. (?)

I will be trying roasting them this fall. The raw taste i had was pretty good. Crunchy, like hard crunchy, think raw sweet potato. Mild flavor. If i bought them in a store i would not have thought they could be so easily foraged.

I started to look around heres a neat recipe article about it

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#31

we have tons of these on old farmland. never thought of them as edible. most people spray them to kill them.

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#32

I like them as edging. They shut down any other weeds. Makes a nice solid border. Plus being able to eat it, free and zero care

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#33

make a 4’ by 4’ 6in deep bed of fresh woodchips in a sheltered wet area. hardwood is best. get a winecap spawn culture. i use evertythingmushrooms. break up. your mushroom spawn into your sawdust. mix well. cover w/ 6in of straw. water when your garden needs watering. in 6 mo. spread the colonized chips around your plants as a mulch. apply another 3in of fresh mulch. in another 6 mo. you will have wine caps coming up every were! i did this 3 years ago and im still getting shrooms! just continue to add 3in of mulch every spring and they will continue to grow. elm oysters will grow the same way.

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#34

Anyone who has ever had a long haired dog get into burdock burrs knows why it is a hated weed.

I allow the stuff to grow when it’s well away from the house/dog roaming area, but any that pops up in the areas my dog roams is going to get a hot dose of 2-4D

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#35

Yeah those burrs r killer

#36

Picked my 11th quart of wild raspberries today. Along the way I stumbled on some prickly gooseberries that are just starting to ripen. Anybody pick and use them? I remember my Dad liked gooseberry pie, but I don’t believe I ever tried it as a kid. The fruits seem a bit formidable with the spikes/prickles.

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#37

I tried cooking tender young nettles one year. We had scads of it, so I thought I was really onto something. It tasted about like cooked spinach, quite delicious. Then I got the worst diarrhea from it I ever had! I have food allergies, so maybe it wouldn’t affect others that way. Never again.

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#38

I’m no expert, but my wife and I teamed up to do a 5 gallon batch of elderberry wine in the very first year that SWD hit in my part of CT. We gathered roadside elderberries from all over town for this. I wanna say it was August 2013. Some of them were loaded with the worms by the time we got them home, unfortunately. My wife did great making sure the stems were removed from every berry and I believe this does make a difference in the flavor of the final product. We followed the recipe from the Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook and it made probably the best wine I’ve ever made at home. Better than even the blueberry wine, which is great when made with home-grown berries but disappointing from any store bought blueberries I’ve tried making it with (we currently are in a different house, with immature plants that aren’t bearing yet).

It’s a real pain to collect elderberries in small quantities from various roadside areas and pollution is a concern there, and if SWD is going to hit right at peak elderberry time then I see no reason to try planting the named varieties. But boy, all the people who’ve told me that elderberry makes a good wine were right.

Edit: Oh here we go, a solution. Now it’ll be on my mind. Hah!

https://elderberryedge.com/elderberries/swd/

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#39

My wife and I have had the same “experience” with consuming ramp greens. The bulbs don’t have the same effect, so we stick to just eating those.

#40

I broke my favorite Japanese gardening tool trying to get burdock out of the ground. :frowning: Will use full sized shovel now that I know better. I will be ultra satisfied getting it out and devouring it.

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