I thought i would start off this new forum with a topic that is popular. Everyone knows some edible plant in their area.

I would like each post to contain a description of the plant/fruit, along with where it grows, what it looks like (include pictures), and the best time of the year to harvest and eat this plant. I recommend printing these pages and making a reference book that you can use when in the wild.

I will start off this thread with a wild plant that grows in my back yard.

Wild Strawberries



This fruit ripens in late spring to early summer. It is much smaller than a commercial strawberry, but in my opinion is much tastier. You can identify the plant before it bears fruit by the white flowers it produces.



The plant remains low to the ground and can be hidden by higher grass. It is normally found on the edge of wooded areas or where there is a lack of shade. Be careful as I have found poison ivy growing right ext to these plants.

There are no poisonous plants that look like the wild strawberry. There is a similar plant called the wood strawberry that has yellow flowers. These berries are edible but are pretty much tasteless.

Wild strawberries have a very short growing period, but are very tasty and make a nice treat if you are out where they grow.

_________________
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

NRA Certified Instructor for Basic Handgun and Personal protection in the Home.
V.F.W. Life Member
NRA Member
U.S. Army Veteran

this is really a nice thread that should keep going, thanks for sharing the detailed informations.

I'm a New Englander and one of the most common wild flowers that I come across is the dandelion. Young leaves can be eaten raw in salad or boiled. Young flower buds can be boiled
and served with butter. Flowers can be used for fritters. Baked and ground roots can be steeped to make a coffee-like drink.

Growth Form: Herbaceous plant, prostrate rosette.

Leaves: Usually 5-20cm (2-8in) long with irregular pointed lobes and deep sinuses. Young leaves tend to be oval-shaped, and do not usually have deep sinuses.

Flowers: Solitary, yellow, composite at end of stalk.

Fruits: Clustered into whitish, downy seed balls.

Stem: Hollow and milky, 5-15cm (2-6in) tall.

Habitat and Range: Disturbed areas, lawns, and roadsides throughout the United States.

Harvest the leaves and buds in early spring, the flowers in spring and early summer, and the roots in fall and early spring.

Fun Facts: Leaves are rich in vitamin A.

You can find wild onion and garlic in Kentucky quite easily. There is a rule though . . .

Wild onions must both LOOK AND SMELL like onion.

Same rule for the wild garlic, it must both LOOK AND SMELL like garlic. Even the tops, flowers and buds are edible too.

There are a few plants that look like wild onions or garlic, but they don't smell like it . . . avoid those.

If you see a wild onion with it's little seed pod . . . grab it, the seeds are very peppery and hot tasting. They are an excellent addition to a cook pot.

The blooms can be quite varied, but in this area, they are almost always white or lavender. Blooms that are just coming out of their cowling and starting to bloom are wonderful just to pick off and eat, they taste like sweet onions.





There are some plants that look like wild onions or garlic that you can't eat, but if you rub/break them, theydon't smell like onion/garlic.

ALL of the Allium family are edible.

Macrosperma Michx
Large Cane grows all over the south east. It tends to grow where the ground is rich, especially just above the boggy areas of streams in our area (central Kentucky).

It's a bamboo-like cane/grass that has heavy seed heads for most of the summer and into the fall untill it gets blighted by frost. Pick those that are heavy enough to feel full and start to bend over or sag. make sure to check them for black mold, you can eat the grain on those, but don't try to save it.

The slick little kernels are a little harder to thresh out than wheat, but they are larger. You can cook them into an oatmeal-like mush or toast them and then cook them in soup or stew. The settlers and indians used it like wheat berries are used today.

It tends to grow in big tight groups that are almost impassable (cane break) and they do tend to be a harbor for small critters and snakes in the tunnels of their mixed old dead canes and new canes.

This is a stand of cane at the farm in Lexington, Kentucky, near the stadium for University of Kentucky. This stand gets burned off every year, so it's much "cleaner" looking than a wild stand that will have lots of last year's cured dry canes mixed in. BTW, this is one of the few plants that will literally crowd out and kill virtually every other plant in its path as it spreads . . . it is DENSE. It will stop spreading as it gets to where the ground doesn't have enough water. The runners will make the surface of the ground weirdly lumpy and you will find that the area around it is curiously bare.

Of course, I have a question.

Most of the edible plants we find in the world, aren't in cultivated areas. It seems to me that they are great candidates for haphazard transplanting in a yard. They should be easier to grow since they don't want rows and a lot of attention.

Are these plants fairly easy to transplant?

Sometimes it is really hard to transplant or seed wild plants, even if you have a spot that you think is just right.

It took me about 6 years to get wild rape growing in our fence row (birds love it and it's what canola oil comes from, similar to wild mustard but much bigger oilier seed). The wild stuff is tough once you get it started, I tried transplanting . . . no joy. The county extension agent suggested I collect the seeds (hard to do because the birds LOVE them), so I put netting bags on some of the bushes. I now have two little groupings and they are spreading.

Beechnuts . . . lets just say 3 plants growing grew, right next to a fence post (not where I planted them). I think birds must have seeded them for me. We'll see if they grow into trees. They are notoriously hard to get started. We're lucky enough to have a stand of them near our house.

Then, there are some plants (like large cane) that will literally take over the world if you let them.

If you contact your county extension agent, or agricultural bureau, they will often give you help with planning and getting started indigenous plants. When I told them I wanted a wildlife friendly landscape with edible plants for us too . . . they fell all over themselves to help. They brought me trees and plants and seeds and even helped me with some labor (they brought out students to help us terrace the creek area to replace the Blue Heron habitat that my neighbor destroyed.

Be careful about planting wild plants, remember, there are a LOT of plants with poisonous leaves and stems. Also, many plants are edible when young, but either poisonous or unhealthy when more mature. Dandelions, Pokeweed, and many wild greens that are OK to eat young (though sometimes you have to take the veins out, will make you really sick if you eat them mature. Dandelions have quite a lot of Oxalic acid (as much as rhubarb) when the leaves are mature, Pokeweed will give you bad diarrhea if you don't cut out the veins and eat it young. Blackberry leaves make wonderful tea that is the cure for simple diarrhea, but if the leaves are mature, you should not eat them fresh, they should dry for a couple of days.

Another warning, some plants are protected. Be VERY careful not to dig up and attempt to transplant protected species.

Very nice thread. I will search for some plants and try to contribute. I dont know much abut plants but will surely learn from pros like you.
Thanks