Foraging For Food Guidelines

I have recently started to gather some of my food from nature. This is due in part to finances and partly because we are trying to keep chemically laden foods out of our diet.

Having been a "city" girl all of my life, I was never taught anything about wild foods in nature so it took a bit of research to figure things out. If they had a book called 'Foraging for Dummies' I'd probably buy it, but seeing as how there wasn't much interst in that type of book apparently (none have been published yet that I know of) I was forced to do a bit of work. I gleaned information from a variety of places including my meager experiences, small tidbits in books, and a few scant articles on the internet. I thought I would write those lessons down here on the internet to make others like me have an easier time figuring this old seemingly long forgotten art out.

1. If you don't know what it is, don't eat it.
2. Be aware of your surroundings. Some animals (or bees!) may live nearby and feel protective of their home.
3. Know what parts of the plant are edible and which parts aren't.
4. When trying something new, try it in moderation... you know, like the way you introduced your babies to new foods. Some foods may not agree with you.
5. Look in places that are not polluted or near busy road ways for safety's sake.
6. Leave some food for the wildlife and future plant making. We must keep nature in mind while we are also trying to feed ourselves and our families.
7. Do not harvest on private land without the owner's permission. Remember that just because they give you permission once does not mean you get unlimited access to their property.
8. Always bring a way to carry your treasures home with you without damaging it.
9. Havest plants when they are fully mature and ready for picking. Know what you are doing or you may become ill.
10. Some wild plants must be processed before eating. Know which plants these are and find out proper techniques for doing so.
11. If harvesting on public land, know the rules and follow them.

I've been working on harvesting some things from nature the last couple of months. I will share specific information that I have found about each thing at a later date. The rules above apply to pretty much anything that you may find.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Question

Look what FINALLY bloomed for me today! I was so excited that the first thing I did was run inside to grab my camera. I've been watching it swell bigger and bigger for weeks now, just DYING for it to open. It's even more beautiful than I remembered.



When I saw that 2 out of 3 of my blooms finally opened today I had to snap a picture. Maybe I should have waited for the petals to completely unfurl, but it struck me a so gorgeous that I just couldn't have the patience to wait any longer.

Let me tell you a bit of what I observed about this lovely lily. It appears to be a stargazer lily, but I don't remember ever planting one. The petals appear to have fine hair like things covering the insides. It is very strongly scented too, in a good way.

My question is... do these lilies rebloom if I were to cut the lilies before they are completely spent? I know I can't bring them inside to enjoy (stupid cats!), and I'd hate to cut down such a lovely flower without reason. I am leaving it for the wildlife to enjoy for now. I guess I don't know a whole heck of a lot about keeping my perrenials blooming longer or if that's even possible with most varieties.

If anyone knows any info, I would appreciate your help!

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Excuse my Stupidity but...

Having grown up in different cities, well towns really, all of my life I just don't seem to know a whole heck of a lot about country living. Add to that the years of apartment living and my exposure to all of these wonderful natural elements are basically nil! I have been battling with my depression since we moved here, so this is the first I am noticing a whole lot of things. I am amazed at all of these new and different things even though this is our third summer in this house.

For example yesterday... Here we are building our shed (what else would a person do on a day off together?) when I notice these things growing in low bushes all around the shed.



What are they? I have no idea. I asked Cheesehead. He is clueless as well since he has been a town kid all of his life too. I just had to take a picture and ask my cyber buds. I'm sure someone out there is less clueless than us!

I reached out and felt it. That bristly looking surface is really a soft fuzz. I could have run my fingers over it all day, it was really a neat sensation to touch. As you can see the leaves are serrated. The bushes are between 3 and 4 feet tall on average I would guess. They grew in groups of two mostly. Of course I tooka picture of one with a blemish, silly me! Most of them are solid green. If I was forced to choose something to name it I would say it's some sort of nut, although I could be completely off base here. When I squeezed the bulbous portion it was very hard inside, almost like an acorn feeling thing.

Anyone willing to help a poor clueless town girl out here?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day June 2008

What a trip. I am just settling back in, I sure am glad to be home. Boy, did my flowers start to pop open while I was gone! The peonies are almost ready to bloom, I'll have to do a seperate post for them as I am sure they will be done blooming by the time the next bloom day rolls around. Usually they would already be done blooming by now, but it's been rather cool this spring.

When I left, only the creeping phlox was in full bloom, now several others have opened as well. There are many more almost ready to pop open too.



The phlox I have chosen to feature is one of many, the tag identifies it as candy stripe. I have pink and purple ones as well, but I didn't want to upload all of them. Sorry, I guess I'm just being a bit lazy! Obviously this was taken some time ago, but it is still blooming.



We also have several wild flowers. I'm not sure what these are called, but we have both orange and yellow ones. Only a few of them are open, but any day now the rest of the buds will be unfurled. I just love the fuzzy stem on there plants, what great texture they add to the garden.



We also have lovely dwarf coreopsis in bloom. What a gorgeous plant, with bright, a cheerful colors.



The purple showers tufted violets are looking dainty in their semi-shaded home.



The Dwarf Beard Tongue was on the decline, but I found one really nice looking bloom still in all of it's glory.



We also have a large variety of pansies in bloom.

Remember the plants that the deer ate up? Don't they look nice? This one is the one with all of the different colors in it. I just love how all of them are varied and mixed together with each other. I wish I had taken pictures of their parents a few years ago. I planted dusty millers and marigolds in the front corners to help the critters away. It worked on one of the two planters, but I think they are munching the other planter from the side that doesn't have any of these objectionable plants on it. At least it seems to be helping a little bit!

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Busy Day!

Whew! It was a sunny day today and reached into the mid 60's. A perfect day to get some work done outside!

First the kids and I cleaned the garage. The progress is slow, but sure. At this rate I may actually get it done in the next month or so even if we can't get a shed.

Once the garage was done we gathered sticks and rocks from the yard. Of course there are still many more to clooect, but I feel like we knocked a pretty good dent into the amount left for us to finish.

I didn't get pictures of all of the work we did today, but I did manage to take a picture of the yard after I filled in the holes with black dirt. Sorry Kathy, I didn't take any plaster prints of them before doing this. Once I filled in the holes, I spread lime over the yard again, watered it in and also spread seed. It's supposed to rain the next few days. I sure hope it does, I could use some free water to help my lawn come in better!




There were quite a few more holes in the yard than I bothered photographing before, but look at all of that black dirt. The dark spots are the fill I added. This was just the worst spot in the yard too. I'm surprised that I didn't get a sunburn today!

After all of that work I decided to take it easy and seach for more wildflowers. I was well rewarded! These are the flowers currently blooming. I also saw several more that had buds on them too, so I should be able to find a few more soon.



Here's the yellow one we saw the other day (um, I think...). There are several more blooms on it now. I also cleared it so we could see the leaf shapes better. I'm not very good at looking up plants on the internet, but that's okay.



These are tiny, a very pale pink too. I almost missed them. Don't my fingers look huge compared to them?



I also found some wild strawberries growing.



I also have no clue what these are. They are about 2 feet tall or so and the blooms are smaller than the one pictured above with my fingers. I'm sure most people would probably consider this a weed, but it looks so bright and cheerful.
Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Mystery tree

We're completely stumped. I even asked our neighbor at the bus stop this morning. He didn't know either. I've been looking at trees since I last posted my wonderful wildflowers post. Now the buds are opened completely, I ran outside to take some more pictures.



As far as we've noticed this tree doesn't produce any fruit. As you can see, it has five petals. The blooms do look like a flowering crab. It seems similar to a crab apple tree. But it's the bark that stumps us.



I took this somewhat out of focus shot. I wouldn't have included it, but it shows the shape of the leaf so I included it anyway. If you look above in the petal picture you can see that the edges of the leaf are serrated.



Here's the bark. I've never seen anything but birch with striping like that. Our neighbor hasn't either.

It may end up being a tree, but it seems to grow in a bush like habit. I cut the lower limbs off of the largest tree in our back yard and shaped it like a tree. So far I'd estimate it's about 7 or 8 feet tall, but it still seems to be getting taller. The trunk is the size of a tree that you would buy from a nursery for at least $50 or more. If I had to guess how big around the trunk is, I would say around 2 or 3 inches. I'm not all that great at guessing correct estimates though unless I have some sort of measuring device.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy