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5 Invasive Plants You Can Eat

5 Invasive Plants You Can Eat
The logic of eating wild plants is obvious; the logic of eating invasive wild plants is even more so. Culling aggressive species that have a negative impact on native plants, while avoiding the environmental pitfalls of agriculture? And free, local and abundant? Yes, please. Invasive plants are non-native species that can thrive in areas beyond their natural range of dispersal. According to the Land Management Bureau, millions of acres of once-healthy, productive rangelands, forestlands and riparian areas have been overrun by noxious or invasive plants. So what can we do? 1. Native range: Old World, probably Southeast Asian in origin Invasive range: Throughout North America Habitat: Rocky bluffs, barnyards, gardens, sidewalk cracks, disturbed areas; widely found in city lots. Because of it is a prolific producer of seeds, common purslane (pictured above) can rapidly take over warm, moist sites. 2. The pretty leaves are alternate, egg shaped; stems are hollow. 3. 4. 5. Related:  Survival Food, Storage, Cooking

Top 10… Foods To Forage - Green Living Thanks to modern agricultural methods, foraging – once a part of the majority’s daily life – has faded away, replaced by regular trips to the supermarket instead. Recently, however, there has been a revival of interest in raiding nature’s larder thanks to increased awareness of the health benefits of wild food, not to mention the TV exploits of Bear Grylls, Ray Mears and co. But it foraging is about more than just food. It gets us out into the countryside and helps to cultivate an intimate appreciation of nature, re-establishing a connection severed by modern urban life. But for the beginner, foraging should come with a health warning as it’s easy to mistake a deadly fungus for an innocent field mushroom. While wild food is generally good for you, taking precautions and getting some tips and advice from experienced foragers is essential. Mushrooms Neither animal nor vegetable, mushrooms are a type of fungi and the largest living organisms on Earth, some reaching three miles in length.

iPhone App Find Free Fruit: NeighborhoodFruit.com Introducing Find Fruit, your mobile companion of NeighborhoodFruit.com! Locate fruit trees on public land on the go! Looking for local blackberries for a pie? Want to smell fruit blossoms on a romantic walk? Interested to learn fun facts about common edible plants? Want to find fruit on the go in many metropolitan areas nationwide? Find Fruit unlocks cities, enabling you to explore in new ways. Features: Location of thousands of trees on public land nationwide on a standard Google Map. Requirements: iPhone OS2.0 or later Credits: Geocoding services provided by USC WebGIS. Available at iTunes. Foraging: 52 Wild Plants You Can Eat Here are a few common North American goodies that are safe to eat if you find yourself stuck in the wild: Blackberries: Many wild berries are not safe to eat, it’s best to stay away from them. But wild blackberries are 100% safe to eat and easy to recognize. Dandelions: The easiest to recognize is the dandelion, in the spring they show their bright yellow buds. Asparagus: The vegetable that makes your pee smell funny grows in the wild in most of Europe and parts of North Africa, West Asia, and North America. Elderberries: An elderberry shrub can grow easily grow about 10 feet and yield tons of food, their leaf structure is usually 7 main leaves on a long stretched out stem, the leaves are long and round and the leaves themselves have jagged edges. Elderberries are known for their flu and cold healing properties, you can make jelly from them and are very sweet and delicious. Gooseberries: Mulberries: Mulberry leaves have two types, one spade shape and a 5 fingered leaf. Pine: Kudzu: Daylily:

9 Common Edible Garden Weeds All too often, homeowners and gardeners wage war in their lawns and gardens against the plants that grow incredibly well there, but that aren't intentionally planted, and many times, the justification for these battles all comes down to the words we use to describe them. When we buy and plant packets of common flower, vegetable, or herb seeds, we spend a lot of time, energy, and water in our efforts to get those seeds to germinate and grow, and take pride in our green thumb and homegrown food supply. But when a plant that we identify as being a weed is found growing in our lawn or garden, out comes the trowel and hoe (or for the ruthless and impatient gardeners, weedkillers such as RoundUp), and we may spend the entire growing season keeping these opportunistic and resilient plants at bay, in order to have neat and tidy garden beds and uniform lawns. 1. 2. ZooFari/CC BY 3.0 3. Cliff/CC BY 3.0 4. Wendell Smith/CC BY 3.0 5. Calin Darabus/CC BY 3.0 6. Leslie Seaton/CC BY 3.0 7. 8. 9.

Clean Your Cooking Gear with Wood Ashes Using wood ashes as a cleaning agent makes alot of sense: they are readily available, free, and relatively safe for the environment when compared to many types of soap. In this Survival Topic we will cover this very handy method for the outdoorsman to clean his dirty dishes. Re-purpose Natural Materials When it comes to wilderness survival, large scale disaster, or even just camping outdoors we often try to do things in the same manner as we are accustomed to doing them at home. Solutions are available to most outdoor and survival problems, if only we have the knowledge and inventiveness to use them. Often it is simply a matter of key pieces of information missing in our expertise, which once provided suddenly gives us a powerful new way to accomplish necessary tasks. Consider the daily chore of cleaning your mess kit after a meal. Easy Access to Soap is Limited In a disaster or wilderness survival setting you will often lack soap with which to wash your camp cooking gear and mess kit.

Livestock « On Pasture Latest Build a “Bud Box” to Make Livestock Handling a Breeze The term “Bud Box” describes the kind of handling facility preferred by low-stress livestock handling expert Bud Williams. By moving animals quietly and standing in the right spot, you can quickly and easily move animals into a chute for treatment, weighing or loading. Here’s information on how to build your own, including a video showing how it works. Read More → Got Pigs? Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PEDV) has been found in many states. Read More → Using Livestock Behavior Makes Improving Landscapes Easier In Part II of this series summarizing Bob Budd’s lessons learned, he describes how understanding and using an animal’s natural behavior makes it easier to move them and use them to improve landscapes and create habitat. Read More → Laying Hands on Them – How to Tell When Your Lamb is Finished You’ve got the tools right there are the ends of your arms to help you figure out when your lamb is ready for market. Read More →

Food Foraging: Find Wild Edible Plants - Mother Earth News We owe a lasting debt of gratitude to the desperate soul who “discovered” the oyster or stewed that first possum. In the early, hit-or-miss days of foraging, our ancestors learned the hard way about the laxative properties of the senna plant, and to eat only the stems of rhubarb and not the poisonous leaves. Through trial and the occasional fatal error, we sorted the edible from the inedible, the useful from the harmful. After World War II, when American agriculture was fully conquered by industry and supermarkets full of frozen foods popped up across the land — yes, like weeds — foraging came to be regarded as uncouth, probably unhealthy and certainly out of step with modern times. Why then, a half-century later, do we find purslane — a vigorous, succulent “weed” once routinely cursed by gardeners — on the menu of nearly every fine dining restaurant in the country? Kerri Conan blogs for The New York Times, and keeps a sharp eye on food trends. Learning the Art of Food Foraging 1. 2. 3.

DIY: Beer Can Into Camping Stove You can whip one of these up in a matter of minutes. They’re so easy to make and they work really well. First find yourself some scissors and a beverage can and then start the above video. This is an inexpensive way to be prepared in the event of a power outage as these stoves give off a lot of heat and have the ability to cook large meals. They also make great holiday gifts for friends and family. For more great repurposing ideas, check out Repurposing 24/7 Image: Vimeo camp stoveDIYRepurposing Related Posts « After Reading This, You’ll Never Look at a Banana in the Same Way Again The Remedy For Everything But Death »

Cultiver le Shiitake - Faites-le vous même ! Suite à une demande d'informations de la part de Yeye, je me permets de copier ce chapitre issu d'un livre sur la culture des champignons, livre qui est épuisé. Il manque les images mais je ne sais pas comment faire pour les mettre... doit-on passer par un site tiers ? Cultiver le Shiitake à la maison Récemment, on a pu voir plusieurs annonces ou articles au sujet du matériel utilisé pour la culture du shiitake (Lentinus edodes). Souvent, il est très dispendieux et ne produit qu'une petite quantité de champignons (environ 1/2 kg constitue une bonne récolte). L'autre solution consiste à acheter des bouchons ou chevilles de blanc de Shiitake puis, en suivant le mode d'emploi, à cultiver le Fungus à l'extérieur sur des billes de bois d'environ 1 m de longueur, selon la méthode pratiquée traditionnellement au Japon. Le choix du substrat Préparation des billes pour l'inoculation Inoculation Incubation Fructification CHEVILLES DE BLANC DE SHIITAKE DISPONIBLES CHEZ :MushroompeopleP.O.

Food Foraging: Wild Edible Plants & Mushrooms

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