WM0000's Journal, 05 March 2024

Those look good. We grow some food here. But seasons are a lot shorter than yours it looks like.  

Local nursery had a whole patch of collard greens next to a creek on their property. Didn't mind a bit if I took all the "weeds" home that I wanted. Totally blind to our history, or what's good. Sooo much better than kale. When I was little my mom used to make ends meet by gathering it wild when food was short. A Korean friend told me they had another name (I can't remember) for it, so I suppose it grows all over the world. 

@Yippee Ki Yay - Are you thinking of pokeweed (poke salad)? It grows wild along steams/river bottoms.  

Pokeweed? Isn’t that poisonous? I have sooo much poke weed I’m suppose to uproot it but was told the song birds love it so I leave it so far no harm done to the dogs. It grows so tall too! 

I googled it more and yep, I guess it can be harvested in the right time. And to think we have starving Americans. 

I did several years ago and I grew zucchini; lettuce, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, jalapeños, bell peppers, cucumbers. Considering doing another garden in my backyard again, as well as getting chicks to get eggs as well. 

I stand corrected. What do you have there? The pokeweed I am familiar with has a smaller leaf than I thought I was seeing you hold. It looks to me like mature base/outside collard green leaves. I suppose there are likely different strains of both collard and poke. I'm on the Great Plains. Not a lot of surface water anywhere so most everything wild or domestic gone wild grows along creeks here. 

Misty, if you find someone local to teach it, people would be shocked at all the free food growing even along waterways in the city. But I highly recommend not winging it alone. A lot of it is poison, especially mushrooms and berries. My stepdad took us kids mushroom hunting many Saturdays and I never became convinced his simple rules about pink undersides weren't going to get us all dead. 

I do! I have been an avid gardener for about 35 years, but only learned the possibilities of a winter garden the past 4. It's amazing to have all these gorgeous green plants to harvest long after the summer vegetables have gone! And it's great not having to fight disease and pests like you do in warm weather. 😍 

Polk is not hard to deal with it as long as it doesn't have flowers, berries, and is not starting to ripen you're normally quite safe. Personally I hate the leaves (they're sauteed like spinach typically), but I like the stocks cut up and fried like okra. I'm much more partial to sour grass, dandelion greens, and other wild grasses/lettuces myself. I forged solo for a couple years so I ate off the land quite a bit you'd be surprised what you can eat. So another tasty treat is to take cattails saute those but if you cook them too long they explode so fun times be careful when cooking, LOL. You can also saute thistle blossoms and butter and they're delicious you have to peel off the prickly parts and get rid of the purple bits and eat the insides they're bit like artichokes. Dry land fish or another tasty treat those are just a funny name for mushrooms also known as morrells. I also grew up making our own root beer as sassafras although I've learned as an adult but apparently that's not good for you and can apparently cause cancer, whoopsies! Ginseng's another other thing that's easy to find or at least it used to be in our neck in the woods. lake berries are completely edible as well for us people as much as people make a big deal about them being poisonous they're completely edible. of course you have your regular berries that I found everywhere I said it's blackberries blueberries etc but yes I agree forgings a very good way of finding food in the spring summer and fall. Acorns can be another good source of food as long as you know how to prepare them correctly. it's all about a separating the good nuts from the badnuts and be leaching the tannins out which I do admit is a bit of a tricky process if you're not used to it it does take about three or four bullies then you roast them grind them and typically would use them in bread or cookies or you could of course just salt them and eat them plain. is it becoming more and more evident that I grew up on a dirt road with a well and an outhouse up by the barn, LOL. ^^ Fyi, we still did have indoor plumbing just so you know. we did have a proper cistern. 

Snake berries* 

I have an 8x8 raised bed that we built, it's just the two of us so we only plant what we can eat, I love tomatoes and peppers plus herbs. I don't have any dry cool storage in the house that could support anything more than that but it sure makes me happy!! Love your smile 😃  

I love my garden plant one every year  

We have an accidental year round garden. We've always planted a garden to harvest in summer and fall, but discovered some of our vegetables would come up automatically in the spring. This made us very happy, because there weren't many vegetables we had to plant. Then one year I walked out to the garden in the middle of November and was shocked to see beautiful bok choy grown without a care in the world. Here we were playing around with cold frames and didn't need to. We find it's all in how you harvest the food and compost it. For bok choy, we just cut the leaves off to eat and leave the bottom part with the root in the ground. It will continue to grow year round. The diakon is a bit of a problem, because it needs loose soil. Our diakon is short, so we are going to try growing it in containers of loose soil. Cilantro and onions are super easy to grow. You can even plant the root part of the green onions from the store and you get a nice crop. Cilantro seeds itself. Love being able to walk out to the garden for fresh vegies and to the coops for fresh eggs everyday. Also, gardening helps to relieve stress. I just imagine I'm pulling mean coworkers' hair when I weed the garden. :D 

looks delicious  

WOW! Absolutely awesome! Kudos to you. I only have fond memories of beautiful gardens in my past....and enjoy them. It's amazing what one can produce and sharing is a special blessing in itself. 

@Mistybenner - It poisonous if you do not know how to prepare it. If you boil the leaves 4 to 5 time, you can remove the poison. I do not mess with it but my grandmother would harvest it when she was living. Blackberrys grow while on or family homestead so between the months of May and June, you could collect quite a few berries. I love being able to save a few bucks and have fresh produce whenever I want it. Many of the greens were blanched and frozen for use later in the season. I've also been canning a few veggies too. If I didn’t have cats, I would raise a few chickens for eggs. 

@buenitabishop - It was! From the ground to the table.  

@Magpiezoe - I'm going to have to try bok choy. I use it in stir-fry sometimes.  

we grow our own tomatoes, beans, taters, and so on we have 40 laying hens 30 meat chickens two pigs two turkeys one cow and 400 lbs of venison and 200 lbs of hog meat.no store needed for Littles here.