WILD EDIBLES AROUND THE HOMESTEAD

phedizzle (55)in #permaculture • 6 years ago (edited)

Today I'd like to show you interesting things I've come across as I've been out and about on the homestead. I've been coming across pretty plants, scary plants, helpful and harmful pests, and an overall variety of wonder. This post will focus on a few of the wild edibles I have been enjoying. Most have died off now, or bolted, because we haven't really had much of a spring and these are the first to show up when the winter fades away.

This is a pretty, supposedly edible, invasive called Henbit. It doesn't smell very good, but it gives a nice purple glow over the ground where it spreads very fast and easy. It's hard to control. As you can see it has many tiny flowers which means it makes many tiny seeds.

This is Chickweed. I'm not sure if this is an invasive here in Missouri, but it's a delicious edible. I pick the leaves and throw them in salads, as they have a spinach like flavor. It grows and spreads quickly as a ground cover. Although, it does not like the heat so will die off quickly. I like letting it grow for 3 reasons. The rabbits enjoy eating this more than the salad greens we intentionally grow, it tastes good, and it works as a good early spring through early summer ground cover.

Here is a close up of the itty bitty chickweed flowers. I've basically decided to let it grow wild as a groundcover since it crowds out the less ideal wild plants. If you can imagine, It self seeds so easily.

This is Purslane. It is also considered an invasive weed by many. It is quite tasty, though. A shame people dislike so many plants that are no maintenance food sources. It also has a spinach like flavor, but with a bit of a meaty, juicy, and crispy type of a texture. Very delicious in salads.

Wild purple garlic which grows in our orchard. I'll be doing other posts on this, as I transplanted some of it this year. This is when it was beginning to wake up after winter. I would use the word spring, but we didn't seem to have one this year.

Young common white yarrow growing through the fallen fall silver maple leaves. These dainty feather like leaves are edible. I put them in salads. I really enjoy the texture of them. They have a slightly black pepper like flavor. A little goes a long way. I'm letting the few patches around the property grow as much as possible so hopefully I can seed save this year.

Well, there you go. That's all for now. If you enjoyed this, please consider upvoting, resteeming, commenting, and following. Until the next post, take care.

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6 years ago in #permaculture by phedizzle (55)

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creationofcare (61) 6 years ago

Love that chickweed and purslane! Now to find the others and try them out, too! Miss you xoxo

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phedizzle (55) 6 years ago

Heeeyyyy! You know, I first learned of purslane in Riverside when I first met you guys. I didn't realize it grew here, too. We don't have a lot of it. It's crowded out easier by the other weeds haha. Other than being pretty I'm not really that fond of henbit. Yarrow is wonderful, tho. If I can collect seeds I want to use it for ground cover. It really likes our clay. Miss you too! Hope the family is well! <3

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creationofcare (61) 6 years ago (edited)

Oh yeah, I was so surprised to find how tasty fried purslane is especially with potatoes. I will definitely grab some yarrow next time I am buying seeds, too. <3

The fam here is doing well, Ivan is scraping by his freshman year at UCR. Matt and I do a lot of overlanding. How are things your way?

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hethur240 (61) 6 years ago

Thanks for sharing these awesome edibles! If only more people knew what awesome foods they were killing every time they spray "weed killer."

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phedizzle (55) 6 years ago

I agree. I won't lie and say I never use weed killer. I spot use it on 3 things. Poison Ivy, hemlock, and multirose. However, I would rather not, even though these things are multiplying, killing the native plants in the creek, I'm allergic to poison ivy, and in the case of hemlock, it's a potentially fatal plant. yikes.

I'm in such a place that is remote enough where I really can't control any of them and this year I have let it grow without picking, pulling, cutting, or the last resort of spraying. I'm not looking forward to them taking over everything, and they will. This is why we need goats as soon as we have the setup to be able to take care of them. Although, the hemlock is really bad for animals I believe. So...I'm not sure how to get rid of that. They are all perennial.

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amberyooper (69) 6 years ago

I know we have purslane up here because it's all over the garden. I think we have yarrow also, the others I haven't seen up here.

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phedizzle (55) 6 years ago

Out of these, yarrow is my favorite. It really likes the clay soil here and makes a nice ground cover. It can be mowed and will continue to grow back, like grass. It can also be walked on. It's quite nice with bare feet, lol. When it grows big enough to flower, they are pretty little white flowers which look great in flower bouquets. It's late in the year but I think we are going to toss some flower seeds down and see if we win the lottery haha. Never really tried flowers before.

Purslane, on the other hand, its more of a nuisance. It grows in our gravel driveway. It's so short and its flowers so tiny, its hard to get it all up. I want to collect seeds so I can move some of these things to better locations. Does it give you problems in your garden?

Henbit, altho pretty, is something you don't want. It's invasive and very hard to control. I mean, they all are I guess, but its benefits don't seem to be many as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have white clover. It is pretty in the field when it's in bloom, though. Do you have to do a lot of weeding? I imagine not as much as other people because you have raised beds and a greenhouse.

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amberyooper (69) 6 years ago

Purslane is a pain in the butt if you let it grow. LOL
It would be all over my garden if I didn't keep pulling it out. I know it's edible, but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.
We use white clover as a ground cover, and to build up the soil in the garden if we have a part of the garden that isn't being used for crops. I tilled a bunch of it in before I planted the yellow potatoes this year.
I do everything I can to keep the weeds from growing in the main garden but I still end up with a fair amount of weed pulling. I cover all the ground that I can that's not growing a crop with something, old boards, strips of old rubber backed rugs, I even cut a couple of the plastic truck bed liners into strips to put between the rows of stuff to keep the weeds from taking over. That also makes it nicer to walk in the garden, you don't get muddy walking on the old boards.
The raised beds will get full of weeds if you don't do anything about it, but they're a bit easier to take care of, not so much bending over. I've been working on pulling the weeds out of the raised bed that has the carrots in it. I don't know where all the grass comes from, but it sure is a pain in the butt. Seeds, I suppose...

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phedizzle (55) 6 years ago

Something that worked well for me last yr was laying down construction paper over the planting crop area, poking holes in it. It will dry out easy unless covered with a mulch, but we used straw. We didn't get huge yields but because of the bugs. Stoopid bugs lol. Had no weeds in the grow area. I've been trying to kill out patches of lawn with black plastic with the intention of putting down clover. We have white clover but not a ton yet. The more we have the less mom has to mow. I'm trying to save seeds from that, too altho it's not expensive to buy. I really like white clover, but it'll take over, too. But that's my plan for the orchard area.

Ugh it'll be so nice to eventually get the infrastructure in. Won't eliminate the work, but I'm so slow that I'm months behind.

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phedizzle (55) 6 years ago

You can get large rolls of the construction paper at home Depot for around 10$

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amberyooper (69) 6 years ago

I think cardboard would work also, if you can get a lot of it.

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samiulbd (21) 6 years ago

It's hard to find people who do not love flowers. Nature lovers just love flowers.

The flowers are the most prominent in giving gifts to loved ones. On any given day, the style of giving flowers to loved ones is very old. Moreover, especially during the festival days, young people love to decorate with flowers.

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trumanity (60) 6 years ago

They don't look very edible at all - but I will take you on your word ;-) Lovely article and images. Thanks.

Thanks very much too for your vote on my recent post.

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offgrid-online (50) 6 years ago

This post has been featured in the @offgrid-online Weekly Curation. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with edibles around your homestead :)

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WILD EDIBLES AROUND THE HOMESTEAD

Well, there you go. That's all for now. If you enjoyed this, please consider upvoting, resteeming, commenting, and following. Until the next post, take care.

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