Whats for tea and Lunch

At this time of the year the nettles are just starting to push out of the ground around here they are about four inches high. Depending how sensitive your hands are you may or may not have to wear gloves when you pick them. I usually just pick them with my bare hands.
The easiest way is to just pinch off the top two to three sets of leaves.

It makes a very pretty tea. Those are nettle leaves in front of the tea pot. In the spring I have this for my morning tonic. They are also very good stir fried and we often mix them in with the leeks when we cook them.

Below is an omelet made with wild leeks and domestic mushrooms and broccoli. In the cup is apple cider that we pressed last fall. There are many apples in the wilds and peoples yards that go to waste. Just one tree of small 'worm eaten' apples produced over thirty gallons of cider. The worms don't affect the taste and they 'certify' that it is pesticide free.

As it is cooler fall when we press the apples I just keep it in five gallon buckets outside on the north side of the house. If it gets to warm then it turns in to nice bubbly cider and if it freezes it just keeps longer. We drink about a gallon a week and have it well into the winter. We also put about 15 gallons in the freezer so we still have some to drink now.

Sunday Lunch

As usual when we go out for our exercise walk we take along our camera and plastic bags as we never know what we will come across.

Here is John picking wild leeks. This is a spot that is on a South facing creek bank which means they will be one of the first areas of the season to mature. Some other areas they are just poking out of the ground. But that is fine as when the ones on this bank are to mature to pick these in a cooler spot will be ready to pick. If you pay attention to the micro climates you can extend the harvest season of most any of your plants.

Here is a picture of our "wild" lunch he had to day. Stir fried leeks and nettles in the front dish. Another dish of garlic mustard stir fried with sausage. This was a bit on the bitter side but I still enjoyed it.

We also had salmon caught from lake Michigan. The only thing not free from the wilds is the pot of rice which is nearly free as it only costs about 30 cents as we buy rice in 50 pound bags.

Wild Onions in Chicago

Wild Onions on birch bark in a field of onions.

A week of cold weather has slowed down the coming of spring plants. I just got back from a weekend of being in the Southern suburbs of Chicago. They have some really nice forest preserves that I always try to spend some time in when I’m down there.

This is a nice time of the year to get the lay of the land as you can see a lot further into the woods and have a better idea of what’s there. Latter in the summer you can barely see beyond the first few rows of trees.

Again I was glad I didn’t have to survive off the land as there is not a whole lot in plant food yet. Saw lots of deer and plenty of raccoon tracks. I love how there is such an oasis of animals and plants in the midst of one the biggest cities in the US.

This reminds me of how even in Tokyo, where I worked for a number of years, right down town I could find plenty of wild plants to eat and enjoy the wildlife. In a pond right near the Imperial Palace, thousand of ducks would come in from Siberia to spend the winter (I use to envy how they didn’t have to bother with visas and passports.)

It’s an awesome sight seeing V formations of ducks coming in for landing as the thread their way between the high rise buildings. I have found memories, of my birthday tradition, of my wife and I heading to these ponds. Here we would celebrate, my birthday, with the thousands of ducks who have flown thousands of miles to come to my birthday party. As we fed these ducks and they walked and swam all around us, I marveled at how in the city I could walk with the ducks right at my feet, but out in the wilderness they wouldn’t even let me get with in a hundred yards of them.

Anyway I digress. The wild onions were plentiful in spots and you could pull them up, bulbs and all, by the handful as they tend to grow in muddy areas. The bulbs are about the size of a pea. In about ten minutes I collect half of a recycled plastic grocery bag. (It’s easy to carry several of these bags in your pocket and then if you collect a lot of things just tie them to your belt to carry your booty home.)

Now because you have so many of these it can take a lot of time to wash off the mud and outer skins of the bulbs. If you want to avoid all this cleaning just snip the chive like greens off above the ground. A pair of kitchen scissors works well for this. Because I can’t stand to waste the bulbs even though they are tiny, I have discovered the best way to clean them is with the strong spray of a garden hose.

I then cut them up into about 1 inch pieces and stir fry them (collect lots as they really cook down) or add plenty to my salad. They are a very mild onion and even milder when cooked. As much as I love ramps (wild leeks) I like these even more.

ITEM OF INTEREST: Chicago comes from the Indian word Checagou, which means "the place of the wild onion or garlic."

It Spring

Just a few warm days and we start to see a little green out there. Today on my hike in the woods, a noticed the skunk cabbages were blooming. Now the don't look like your common flower. The are one of the few plants that blooms before the leaves come out. They are a few inches across and about three to four inches high but are hard to see because they blend in so well with the ground and other debri on the ground. They only grow in swampy area.

In the same area as the skunk cabbage grows I pick a few tiny wild onions, not the leeks that will be about abundantly in just a few week. These are much milder and have small round bulbs about the size of a pencil pea or a little bigger.

I also picked some tender young Dame's Rocket leaves. The first time I ever ate these was last year. It took me a bit of research to find out if they were edible. When they bloom later in spring they are very pretty and have a lovely fragrance that you can smell in the evening air. They are actually becoming an invasive plant and in some ares considered a noxious weed along with the garlic mustard plant. They are a domestic plant gone wild. Ten years ago I had never even seen or hear of Dames Rocket and now we have beautiful purple flower that last for over a month all around our property.

For the people who had to live off the land this is one of the more dangerous times of the year, as food was starting to run out and one hadn't had fresh green in months. It is kind of deceptive as spring is in the air but it is still a ways away from harvesting much. The most important food at this time is the fish that spawn in the rivers. No! If your living off the land you would not survive very long if you were a vegetarian. With out fridges, freezers and the store, your kitchen cupboard during the winter months and early spring was out their running in the woods or swimming in the water. I was reminded of this as I saw two beautiful trout in the creek.

Sharing about edible and medicinal plants

This blog is being set up for the purpose of those who want to have a better knowledge of edible and medicinal plants. Especially for those who have been on my wild plant hikes in Terry Andrae State Park and Maywood enviormental park both located in Sheboygan Wisconsin.
We hope to turn much of this information into a book that you can carry with you on your walks. We will only be talking about plants that my wife (Mary) and I use.
Today at the hike at Terry Andrae State Park 38 people showed up.
We ended the hike with nettle and mint tea that we picked.
The favorite plant was the wild leek pictured here.
The woods around our house is just full of them and the bulbs seem to be at their best now. The edible leaves are getting a little mature this late in the season but they are still good. We cut both bulb and leaves up to use raw in salads or we cook them up in butter and soy sause. This is my favorite wild edible plant,