Wild Edible Plants

[Beeboy]

Water crest. Hard to find, but worth it.

Lambs quarters. I never learned what this looked like as a child, & still don't know, but would love to learn.

Some plant that I recognize as edible, but I don't know what it is called. My dad taught me it was edible.

Ground cherries. I have those growing on my place, & we have made some jelly out of them.

Polk. No one in my family likes it, but with some cornbread, I'm in heaven!

If I think of more, I'll add it.

[CpnObvious]

This has always interested me... and especially where-as I'm so heavily involved in the local Scouting program I'd love to learn and share.  The problem I run into most often is this, though...

Most literature and many sites that I find and/or get a hold of are drawings... DRAWINGS!!!  When so many edible plants look so similar to poisonous ones... Why on Gods green (and blue) Earth would you use DRAWINGS???  The link to MotherEarthNews.com is just as guilty.  This is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine.  Same with educational literature on poison ivy & poison oak... so much if it is drawn!  I'm not putting my(or others) life/lives or comfort on the line because real photographs couldn't be used.

I'm glad someone up above used pictures of mushrooms, not drawings... I've been given many Edible plants handouts on mushrooms that were drawn... but mushrooms aren't something you want to incorrectly identify.

I'm 100% for eating & enjoying what nature provides... but please use caution!    I think tonight I need to enjoy some aged juniper berry extract. 

[Slowmodem]

I was at a fellow keep's house yesterday.  He is a Master Gardener.  He was telling me about borage.  He says it tastes like cucumber and the bees love it.  I have some planted,  but I didn't know it was edible.

[brooksbeefarm]

Slow, i planted a row of borage and catnip in my cucumber patch one year and you could hear the bees working before i got to the patch when all of it was in bloom.I picked cucumbers out of that patch all summer without getting stung,if i picked a cucumber next to the bloom they were on they would fly up and zig zag in my face, telling me that was a no, no. Jack

[iddee]

Blackberries, dewberries, raspberris, muscadines, persimmons, sassafras, creassy greens, buckeyes, sour grass, lollipops, mulberries, locust pods, hickory nuts, gooseberries, wild blueberries, loganberries, fox grapes, huckleberries.

[LazyBkpr]

Buckeyes Iddee?   Do tell!
   Had a buckeye tree in my yard where I grew up, and know of a few places in the wild they are growing, but have never heard they were edible? I have heard the blossums are not good for the bees?

[iddee]

Dry them well and crush into flour. Makes a great bread.

[LazyBkpr]

Interesting..   can you do the same with Oak Nuts?

[brooksbeefarm]

I was always told Buckeyes are poison, that if a Hog ate them it would kill them. Also the leaves of Rhubarb is poison. Jack

[Alleyyooper]

I know old post with out the warning.

Ramps lots of them here and I collect them wash dry and freeze for later maybe 10 pounds worth to last a year.

Fiddle heads are great also and fry up nice, never tried to save any for later but then I don't have a bunch on the place either.

Dandelion greens, pig weeds are also good, also from the marchie areas we collect cow slips.

We also get hickory nuts, wall nuts and acorns.

Special care needed when using Acorns as they have a lot of Tannins.
Tannins can be removed by soaking chopped acorns in several changes of water, until water no longer turns brown. Being rich in fat, acorn flour can spoil or get moldy easily and must be carefully stored. Acorns are also sometimes prepared as a massage oil.

Burdock, I cuss the burrs but is healthy to eat.
Burdock possesses anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties and may be helpful in fighting cancer and tumors due to it’s arctigenin content. It does quite a bit for such a little known herb.



Wild straw berries,black raspberries, huckle berries, goose berries  & cranberries

Morels, Cauliflower fungi,  chicken of the woods and Oyster shroons and ever so often Chicken and Puff balls.

There are other things to collect from the wild for other uses like mothers wart which the bees love too.

   Al

[iddee]

I harvest a lot of wild, edible, just not plants. Fish, frogs, turtles, crayfish, alligator, rattlesnake, along with squirrel, rabbit, dove, quail, pheasant, duck, deer, raccoon, and probably a few I'm forgetting.

There are a few plants I gather, like muscadines, berries and nuts, sassafras and sycamore for tea.

Watermelons are pretty wild, too, when the field owner is shooting rock salt in a shotgun at the teenage heathens stealing them at midnight.   

[brooksbeefarm]

I have Calamus, Water crest,polk, and many other plants that bloom, but the bees don't work them that grow on my farm. Calamus was used ( and still is) by native Americans and our forefathers for medical uses. I don't know of anything that's a predator of it except humans. My wife's grandmother said people used it for stomach problems in her day? i looked it up on the computer and was amazed at what people used it for . I use to try and get rid of it, but think maybe i'll keep it around. Jack

[Alleyyooper]

I for got the Elder berries till I walked by a bush in bloom yesterday afternoon. You have to be real quick to get any as the birds clean them up real fast. I also for got the sumac for tea.

Plus all the wild critters. Don't eat possum my self but know those who do. They don't eat coyote but I do so I guess we are even.

   Al

[lazy shooter]

I love polk salad and wild elder berry jelly.  As a sidebar, if you google Elvis Presley singing "Polk Salad Annie," you will find the song to be Polk Salad ANNIE, not sally.  At least, it's that way in Louisiana.

I always harvest the new growth on polk salad and bring them to a boil, pour off the juice and then cook.  They are my favorite greens.  I didn't think they were fatally toxic.  I thought they would simply cause an upset stomach.  In a normal year, we have an abundance of polk salad.

[efmesch]

I've got Bay leaves (Laurus nobilis) growing in my yard.  The plant (usually a large shrub) with beautiful leaves is used as an additive for flavoring in cooked fuits, soups and meats. It was apparently planted for me by a bird that dropped the initiating seed about 15 years ago.  It initially escaped my finding it because it grew hidden beneath a pomegrate tree and by the time I realized it was there it was well established.