Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

At 10:12 PM -0600 5/31/10, Tradingpost wrote:
> ...We have some Serviceberry we call Juneberry that refuses to die 
> from neglect, and we've tried gooseberry before and should again. 
> I've heard mesquite pod flour sustained the first spanish invaders 
> but who's using it today?
>
> We could use a lot more info on unusual food plants of all types 
> from some of you.


North America has many species of serviceberry! I've heard of 
Canadian varieties, so it grows in many climates.

Haven't had mesquite pod flour, but when I was living in the 
southwest I'd occasionally snack on a mesquite pod -- tasted like 
banana bread to me.

Of the other plants on the list, I've tried lamb's quarters and 
didn't like them. But then, I don't like spinach or chard, either, 
and rarely eat beets (all in the same plant family). Same with Rumex 
-- fine in microdoses as a medicinal tincture, but the leaves I've 
tasted are spitters.

I've made a medicinal tincture of lomatium root, but hadn't heard 
that it was a food. Ditto for Smilax, Mitchella, Aralia, Betula.

Persimmons, of course -- one of my favorite fall fruits -- and I've 
had a few pawpaws.

Ribes aureum is a currant, not a gooseberry -- gooseberries are the 
ones with wicked thorns. Calif. has several species, and I imagine 
other areas of the U.S. have native species as well. I grow a red 
currant and am learning to like it.

The brambleberries are in the genus Rubus -- have grown several of 
these, and iirc have tasted salmonberries on hikes. The leaves make a 
good tea. Haven't met a brambleberry I didn't like!

Have been intending to grow amaranth.

Yacon is one of my favorite garden plants. It's a tender perennial 
that needs a long season, lots of space, good soil, and regular 
water. I harvest the tubers in January -- the texture (and sweetness) 
is halfway between jicama and watermelon.

In my garden, but not on the list:

Nettles, one of my favorite early spring greens. I like to make tea, 
or simmer the greens and use the water for lentil soup. I like the 
cooked greens as well, but unless picked very young, they take too 
much work to strip off the stems and get stringy. High in iron and 
calcium. Pick with gloves and don't eat raw -- aka stinging nettles.

Perennial kale, aka tree collards, grows fast and provides fresh 
greens year-round. I don't know the exact cold tolerance (it rarely 
gets below 30F here), but mine wilted a bit at 20F. Very easy to 
propagate. Never goes to seed. Gets at least 6 ft. high.

Violet leaves, another early spring green, good if you have the 
invasive cool-season violets. I keep mine in a container.

Mache aka corn salad, Valerianella, nice flavored green for late 
winter. Reseeds. I planted it once, and it comes back reliably every 
year.

Miner's lettuce, ditto. Didn't have to plant this one; it's native 
and shows up.

Borage flowers! My favorite late winter/ early spring nongreen. The 
flowers have a good flavor (calendula petals are edible as well, but 
don't have much flavor, kind of chalky).

Nasturtium flowers and leaves -- another one I had to plant only 
once. Also pretty, and likes shade. I have a colony now that has red, 
orange, red-orange, and red-flecked yellow flowers.

Blueberries. (Besides the cultivated varieties, native Vacciniums + 
relatives abound, such as lingonberries, cranberries, huckleberries, 
some of which also like shade.)

Purslane, another edible crunchy green, not my favorite but a nice 
change, and it shows up as a "weed."

Choice native mint-family tea/flavoring plants, such as hummingbird 
sage, yerba buena.

Fennel grows like a weed around here, and I've kept a clump because I 
like the texture, but lately the clump has been getting a little 
bigger than I want, so I've started breaking off a piece and eating 
the inner stem. It's refreshing and flavorful, and a nice crunchy 
juicy treat -- much like eating parsley stems when they get over a 
half-inch thick, or celery stems just before they bolt.

Not in my garden, but in the neighborhood:

I've tried several good fruits in the Myrtaceae, including ugni, 
luma, myrtle, and feijoa (the latter has the best-tasting flower 
petals!).