new goal: learning to "eat my yard"

[back2simplelife]

This site is just awesome! You put in your zip code and it helps you find what wild edibles you have in your area! http://www.hgtvgardens.com/edible/

 

[Czech's_chicks]

Good info B2S! Thank you!

 

[back2simplelife]

Good info B2S! Thank you!

Your very welcome! totally LOVE it and had to share it!

 

[Amastacia]

i made cherry pie with the (slightly over ripe) wild sweet cherries from my yard. first time i've ever made pie, and it turned out really good. i bought the crust, but i even pitted my own cherries, which is a surprisingly messy job. i probably still have purple spots from the juice.

i also had to re-make the daylily petal jelly. it wasn't setting but i think that redoing it (as per the directions i found online) has done the trick. i did taste it before i redid it, and it tastes pretty good. would go great on a bagel or english muffin.

hopefully tonight or tomorrow i will be able to make cherry jelly and maybe mulberry jam, if i can make it out to harvest in the god awful heat.

 

[TeaChick]

I've mentioned plantains above, I've only tried them raw so far. (Maybe because I'm too lazy to get up and make my own food, since my mom doesn't want to cook stuff like that.) You can also make flour out of plantain seeds. I have tried dandelion tea (made with only the root) before and it does taste a little like coffee, although it's quite strong. You can find the tea at some health food stores. The only two edible mushroom that I know are King Bolettes and Morrels. Some other useful but not edible plants that you may be able to find are Lovage, Horsetails, Yarrow (white has the most potent medicinal properties), Jewelweed or Touch-me-not (orange variety is most potent), and Comfrey. I'll probably think of some more later but I am tired from staying up until 2, so I'm not thinking straight. Out of anyone who has some kind of meadow/ forest on their property, can you tell me some of the kind of plants/ trees that grow their? If it is forest, is it lowland or upland? I may be able to tell you what some edibles that may grow their are.

 

What do the plantains look like? I'm only seeing the giant starchy bananas. KWIM?

 

[lazy gardener]

One of the items on my bucket list is to try some of the wild edibles growing in my yard: plantain and lambs quarters. Of course we have an abundance of dandelion greens in the spring, and I find them to be quite tasty.

 

[erinszoo]

Plantain is a green, low growing, broad spade like leaf or longish and pointed at one end (we have both in our yard) both with heavy veins that send up a flower stalk in the middle.

 

[Amastacia]

so i have finally done something else with what my yard provides. we have 2 large crab apples that are absolutely loaded with fruit this year (one has actually broken a branch, though not enough to kill the leaves and fruit on it), and we knew about the big red apple tree in our front yard. we have also found a younger red apple tree in the trees along the fence (near the big one, probably it's offspring) and, the newest find, and green apple tree in the back part of the yard, tastes kind of like a Granny Smith, my DH favorite apple. while the red apples aren't quite ripe yet, we picked a bushel of each crab, red and green apples and made cider. ended up only getting to use half of the green ones since they were all fallen apples and a lot were really bruised and/or had bug spots really bad. and we only used half of the crabs because we were tired of the work. we don't have a press so we used a veggie juice i have then strained that through a sieve and an old bed sheet. a lot of work. but we got about 4 and a half gallons. we are now fermenting it (we home brew a bit and i love hard cider). it did get a little burnt while heating it, so it smells and tastes a little like a caramel apple, but hopefully it will still turn out well.

and i've started getting too many zucchini, plenty of corn, and a lot of potatoes out of my garden. if only the tomatoes and peppers would decide to do something, i'd be all set. plenty of corn and zucchini to freeze for the winter though.

 

[TeaChick]

Congrats on finding the apple trees!!!
My kids are planting apple seeds and apple cores to try to help out with the grocery bill. lol We buy three bags a week just for them, then if I'm eating apples (I only eat GS lol), that's another bag and sometimes DH gets on an apple-a-day thing and that makes a minimum of five bags a week. Whew!
At any rate, I'm happy to hear that your garden is producing so well. I only have tomatoes and peppers, so... :-\
Oh, actually, I also have herbs and they're doing alright. (nothing to write home about though lol)

Happy Yard Eating!!!

 

[Amastacia]

tomatoes and pepper are the main things i don't have. they just aren't growing. my peppers are all the same size as when i planted them