The Wild & Cultivated Kitchen: Early June @ Walkerland
There's a lot going on around the homestead and as we move into mid June, there's a whole new set of wild and perennial trees, plants, herbs and flowers to turn our attention to.
As the dandelion go to seed floating around the garden, the chive blossoms begin to bloom and new choices present themselves. I am constantly studying plants and expanding our culinary and medicinal repertoire. Some day I hope to know all of the plants that grow around us.
At the moment the rhubarb is begging to be harvested as are the spruce tips. The sour sheep sorrel is hard to resist and we can't forget about the pine pollen, a free source of super nutrition growing right in our yard.
Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella) also known as red sorrel, field sorrel, and sour weed grows wild on our land. We harvest it to make a family favourite: sour leaf soup. To dis cover more about this plant including the nutritional benefits, warnings, medicinal uses you'll want to read Garden Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) Early Perennial Greens where we cover both varieties.
Rhubarb is a favourite of ours. We'll make all kinds of delicious things and it freezes well for later use. Tonight we had a stir-fry that included rhubarb and yesterday we enjoyed a lovely rhubarb lilac lemonade. Rhubarb fruit leather is easy to make if you have a dehydrator.
We are patiently waiting for the male pine cones to be ready to release their pollen. This is a potent "super food" that people pay a lot of money for in the health shops. Why not harvest some for free right? I'll write about it once the pollen is ready
We've been enjoying conifer tips the past few weeks and I made a tincture and oxymel with them to preserve some of their medicinal benefits.
We are feeling nourished once again after such a long winter and I am grateful to have so many wonderful things at my doorstep. I have to tell you, I am also exhausted from all the gardening we've been doing. It's been back breaking work and for the first time ever I actually hurt my back which is making life a lot harder.
I find it incredibly reassuring to know that even if we were unable to plant the garden that there is nutritious and healing perennial food & medicine growing all around us.
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So many gifts and blessing! Such bountiful harvests already!! After such harsh cold winter. It is so miraculous and a lot of work!! I am so sorry to hear about your hurt back. I can empathize. I hope you are all better really fast ❤ Such beautiful photography! I had to come read your blog and say hello!
Hello lovely. It always makes me smile when I see your name. Gosh, yes you can relate. I wish you couldn't. I haven't asked you how you are doing either? I hope you are feeling amazing.
Having your back go out is not a good thing this time of year. :((
As always, your photos are beautiful. That basket full of spruce tips is lovely!
Am enjoying my second spring :))
It is never a good time I am so annoyed - I've never had this happen so I am at a loss ...frustrated and annoyed with myself. So glad you are enjoying, as you know I equally enjoy the early glimpse of spring that you share!
I bet it is nourishing to enjoy the Spring after such a long Winter. I still don't know how you can do it! Take care of your back. It's such bad timing to hurt your back at this time of the year when so many things need to be done in the garden. Love the way you captured all the gifts in that last photo. So lovely as always.
Thank you, it is bad timing but a good lesson in self-care I suppose. I'll be soaking up all the beauty this weekend while doing nothing which is not my favorite thing to be doing! :)
Such abundance but only because you have the eyes to see it!
You are an inspiration for living more off the land and all the goodness it provides!
We live right in a pine meadow so everything gets covered with pine pollen. I keep meaning to put some tarps out to gather it but have yet to do so. How do you gather pine pollen?
Sorry to hear about your back I hope you recover soon!
Thank you @porters. I feel so fortunate to have always lived in such remote/rural places where there's so much nature to inspire me. I'll write more on the pine pollen this weekend. We haven't perfected a system. I know some people sit buckets down and just passively capture some of what falls. Others stick a bucket over the male cones and remove them from the tree carefully.
Some people also harvest cones younger and use those as well as gathering the pollen. I found a video recently that I'll try to find again for you. Apparently, pine pollen is high in testosterone. I've been doing a whole pile of research trying to get a better understanding of the health benefits.
I have never heard that about pine pollen! This is so interesting. Can't wait for your post on the pine pollen!
Thank you for this extra info I knew it was very beneficial and we have so much of it here that I thought I should at least lay out some tarps and gather it, filtering out any debri but I curious as to your method. I especially like to know what food I can gather when SHTF and I can't run to the grocery store!
I wish I could get the photos and a post together @porters. I am totally behind on that. If you gather the cones into paper bags and let them dry out in a dry spot for a day or two they usually release even more pollen. We shake that out using a screen and then a fine mesh sieve. This goes into a glass jar and we refrigerate it.
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