Category: Survival Prepper

Editors Note: There has been an increase in seismic and volcanic activity in many regions. Today we are going to revisit this interesting post by Tagir Kabirov at the University of Ufa. I grew up in the North Cascades of Washington state so volcanoes were something I could see from my bedroom window. Mount St. Helens continues to be the most active volcano in the Cascade range. It exploded before I was born but my parents remember it waking them up hundreds of miles away. Mount Rainier that overlooks Seattle, is a volcano over 14,000 feet tall!

When I was a kid, I always wondered what it would be like if Mount Baker exploded. We used to go to Baker Lake and swim and fish when I was a kid and sometimes when I was in that water I thought about how the lake water near Mount St. Helens boiled when it erupted and a once gorgeous ecological area looked like a nuclear blast had hit. 

Before we get into Tagir’s article, I wanted to list a few of the concerning volcano related stories that have made their way into the news here lately so you can get an idea what I mean about the increase of activity being concerning. Remember that volcanic eruptions and seismic activity can lead to devastating events such as massive tsunamis that can affect a lot of people. A tsunami that originates in Hawaii and that is of sufficient scale only allows 3 or 4 hours for the populations on the West coast to get to higher ground with whatever they can grab. For more info on tsunami prep and survival check out this post.

Mauna Loa, Hawaii

There has been an increase in seismic activity at the Mauna Loa volcano. At the time experts do not think there is an immediate cause for concern but it does show that an eruption may happen sooner than anyone would like. Last year the Kilauea eruption caused fissures to open up at the base of the volcano and led to many people’s homes being abandoned or destroyed. The Kilauea volcano is particularly concerning because of the risk of part of the island breaking off and falling into the sea and thus creating a massive tsunami that would affect the entire Western seaboard of the United States.

Raikoke, Northeast Of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk

This tiny 2 square mile island has been under Russian control since World War II. For 100 years it sat dormant and docile in the Sea of Okhotsk before violently erupting on June 22, 2019. The plume seen from the International Space Station would leave anyone awestruck.  There were 9 individual explosions on the luckily uninhabited island.

Mount Manam and Mount Ulawun  Papua New Guinea

On June 26, 2019 both Mount Manam and Mount Ulawun awoke and forced 15,000 villagers to flee. While no deaths were reported, a lot of homes and wells were destroyed. Villagers stayed at rescue centers but food and water supplies were severely disrupted. Since the eruption coated everything in thin slivers of volcanic material, residents are going to have to be very careful in the aftermath to avoid lung conditions.

Stromboli, Italy

The volcano at Stromboli has been actively erupting on some level since the 30s but on July 3, 2019, it had a more severe eruption that caused fires and also killed one person that was walking with a friend. The volcano is a tourist attraction with many people hiking to the top to look into the crater in hopes of seeing small bursts of magma.

Popocatépetl Volcano, Central Mexico

On June 29 and 30, 2019 the highly active Popocatépetl experienced 5 explosions and an additional 169 exhalations of steam and ash. The volcano has been very active since 1994 when it woke up after 50 years of dormancy. The volcano is just over 43 miles from Mexico City, a population center of 21.6 million people. 

Here is Tagir’s advice on volcanoes and preparedness in 2019.

-Samantha

Volcanoes and Preparedness

I always knew that volcanoes could bring our civilization to its knees, if not destroy it completely. There are a few global challenges for humanity, and the ancient Roman god of fire is undoubtedly one of them. I said volcano, and you have probably imagined a cone-shaped mountain, erupting fire and ash, right? And most of them obey that description – old, solid, grumpy and, on occasion, making some trouble for local settlements. You might even witness one during your travels across seas and continents. Of course, a selfie with an erupting volcano is something special! You can’t hold it. As well as those overheated gases, that were relieved from inside pressure to spread at a near-sonic speed cremating every living creature on their way. Hope you’ve been streaming to your cloud!

But let’s take a minute for a serious discussion. Is it something worth worrying about? Frankly, most of us have only seen a live volcano on a screen. And look, the majority of them are located on the edges of tectonic plates and will only be a problem for island and coastal people, right?

Well, no. Even if you’re living thousands of miles away from the shore, you will still be affected. All that chunk of GDP being raised on the coastal shelf will shrink dramatically, and people will need places to go. For our awareness, United States Geological Service has just listed these 18 North American volcanoes as “very high” risk.

Credit to USGS, once again

That’s quite a lot of red. But all of those have been behaving considerably quiet lately, so why should anything change?  Fortunately, global natural disasters did not occur long enough and memories of their terrors faded. Unfortunately, natural processes are cyclic, and new massive cataclysms are inevitable. Remember the funnily named volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, shaking Iceland in 2010?  Back then it could even have a positive effect on the environment, considering it only produced about 40% of CO2, compared to the part of European air traffic that had to be halted. It was a big deal for the affected countries, not used to much transport delays. These local troubles were just a TV report for the rest of the world.

The game changes radically if an eruption is big and long enough to cause global effects. A persistent dust cloud over a continent or two will create a massive climate change, followed by acid rains and unprecedented refugee waves. Food shortages will become an immediate threat as well as diseases spreading throughout the affected population of humans and animals alike.  If we consider the worst case scenario, we might look back to the great Permian Extinction, which was caused by massive eruptions in Siberia about 250 million years ago and led to unparalleled extinction. Few animals bigger than cats survived it. Many millions of years later some other civilization may rise on our bones if we can’t find a way to prevent the great dying of our own. To do so, let’s take a closer look at the tectonic dragon and its heads.

Danger factors of volcanic activity:

Lava. Maybe the most feared and recognized, but quite easily avoidable factor. I mean, you can see it coming, bursting from the top and some side channels, usually predicted by the upcoming smoke. Though a liquid enough lava stream on a steep enough hill can become a racing challenge. Especially with a bonus of melting icecap rushing down. If you see those molten springs, you have probably come too close. Back up a little.

From a definition of lava, being a magmatic substance, which has lost most of the dissolved gases to a much thinner atmospheric pressure, we get our second and much more insidious danger factor – pyroclastic waves, – extremely heated gases, which can boil running water on contact. Spoiler: you mostly consist of water and will boil too. Respect the fire god. Keep your distance.

Ash, ash, ash, IT’S EVERYWHERE!

Well, it’s not ash at all, in spite of being called that way. Forget the soft, dissolving fire or cigarette ash. This one mainly consists of tiny pieces of molten rock, solidified in the atmosphere. Small and light particles, but solid and very abrasive. Cover your breathing hole, take your belongings and leave.

Dust and ash, nasty enough on their own, with a prolonged eruption, become the ultimate villain, stealing our most precious resource – sunlight. Exhausting darkness killing off plants, ocean plankton, food, and eventually oxygen is not a glorious end for humanity. We’re all feeding on the sun. Indoor farms with lights and air filters may go a long way, considering you’ve got enough fuel. Enough canned sunlight. Most persistent might survive.

Tephra. Sometimes the cork is just too tight, and it’s easier to break the bottle. Incoming pressure may not find a quick enough way through the main entrance and burst a mountain open. During the process, rock sizes from shrapnel to twice as big as your car get enough kinetic energy to shame any modern weapon launchers. Again, the best protection is distance. Also, thankfully light is way faster than sound when you see something explode you usually have a second to fall to the ground and open your mouth as wide as you can. Meeting a shockwave while laying down is incommensurably better than otherwise. Also, those jaw bones covering your ear channels might save your hearing for the future evacuation routine.

Earth rumble. Infrasound is low-frequency sonic waves, indistinguishable by the human ear. Some animals seem to be more aware, becoming uneasy and trying to escape the place shortly before an eruption or an earthquake. Subjective reactions include stress, panic, and psychosis, all of which are debatably helpful in case of an emergency.

A discerning reader will notice, that most of the evading danger advice sums up to running away.

Well, these are basic rules that work for many hazards – minimize your exposure, maximize your distance (if possible evacuating perpendicular to the vector of danger factor), and use any screening (filters, walls, landscape) available. Most of your pets will instinctively try to do the same (maybe not the filter part), because evolution gave them legs and limbs, unlike those doomed plants. Retreat or adaptation, fight or flee – those were always the ultimate choices. But adapting to extreme heat and toxic gases might be a little hard if you’re not a bacterium.  Thus, fleeing is usually the best option. And if it is not a civilization-ending event, your id, a smartphone and a toughly packed backpack for immediate needs are all you need. But what if it is? What if we run out of places to run to?

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The post Volcanic Events and Volcano Preparedness 2019 appeared first on LewRockwell.

This content was originally published here.

If it wasn’t for his dad’s hatchet, Alex Woods might not be alive. 

On June 26, Woods, a forest pathologist who works for the provincial government of British Columbia, was attacked by an adult black bear while walking alone in the bush not farfrom the small Gitxsan village of Gitanyow. He survived the encounter, and the bear didn’t. Yesterday afternoon, he told me the story over a few much-needed beers on the patio of his home near Smithers.

A lean 54-year-old with a close-cropped silver beard, Woods has been working in the backcountry for decades. He’s a whitewater paddler, hunter, and outdoorsman. Thoughtful and soft-spoken, he was still rattled as he ran through the details.  

“I was going out to check for the presence of Armillaria root disease in an undeveloped piece of forest,” he says. “I’m a bit technologically challenged, but I had a GPS and the coordinates I needed to get to, so I was just taking a bearing and walking to that. As I was going in I saw freshly broken fireweed, so I knew there was probably an animal around, but there areanimals everywhere up here. And when I’m by myself I always make a point of yelling, so I was going ‘Yo, bear, yo bear.’”

About 700 feet into the forest, Woods came to a deep gully where a section of hemlock and balsam sloped down to a small creek.

“I could hear the creek at the bottom,” he says, “so I yelleven louder, because that’s a place where you could potentially surprise a bear. It was really steep, like 45 degrees, with mature timber that was freshly burnt from last year, so it was relatively open and the visibility was good. I was about three quarters of the way down the slope, and I’d noticed some morels that were coming up, so I picked a couple, but then made sure I was back on my bearing and kept yelling. And then I look up, and there’s this bear running at me—full speed, no sounds, just running at me as fast as it can go from 100 feet away, straight up the slope.

 

 

“There was a charred tree about a foot in diameter right there, and a windfall tree across it, almost forming an ‘L’. So I steppedbehind that and reached for the bear spray that was in my vest, and I couldn’t get the frickin’ lid off it.

“And then the bear’s head came right in,” he says, gesturing to his midriff, “and I hauled off and kicked it as hard I could, and that connected with its jaw and knocked it back. I’m not a big guy, but because I was on such a steep slope, I was just big enough to get it. The bear fell back a bit, but then it came running around the tree and I kicked it hard again in the head, yelling as loud as I could the whole time. It took off and ran up another burned tree about eight feet away, still staring at me.”

For a split second, Woods may have thought the encounter was de-escalating. But it wasn’t. Fortunately, he had a hatchet with him, inherited from his father, the same one he always carries with him in the bush. Like his bear spray, he’d had it stashed in his cruiser vest, a multipocketed work vest that many foresters wear to carry tools on the job.

“I’ve always felt if anything really hit the fan,” he says, “I’d want to have a hatchet or an axe.”

“So then the bear dropped down from the tree,” he continues. “And as it was doing that, I’d reached into the back of my vest. The zipper’s broken, so I was able to get at my hatchet fast. But the bear was right back on me by then, so I just sank the hatchet into its head. I was lucky enough that it happened where those trees were, and on a such steep slope. I wouldn’t have been able to kick it otherwise, or get it on the head. Those trees slowed it down, and fortunately I didn’t struggle getting the hatchet out like I struggled with the bear spray. But also, if it wasn’t for those two charred trees, I’d probably be dead.”

After Woods struck the bear, it slumped away and rolled down the hill.

“It was lying on its back,” he says, “and it looked like it was still breathing, but I kept watching because I didn’t want to turn my back to climb the hill. And I didn’t want to leave the fort, such as it was, of those two logs, so I waited maybe three minutes, trying to see if it was going to get up or if it was dead. Then I decided to get the heck out of Dodge.”

 

 

Woods backpedaled up the hill and then made a beeline to his truck, looking behind him the whole way, hoping the bear wouldn’t get up and come after him once more.

Back in Smithers, he told the B.C. Conservation Officer Service about the attack. Yesterday officers located the site and found the bear still alive, but mortally wounded, with its skull opened by the hatchet blow. The officers were armed and killed the bear.

“Afterward they called and told me it was a sow with cubs,” he says, “and that’s really f’d up. That’s not good at all. I’m still processing that. But before it happened, I did everything you’re supposed to do, and exactly what’s worked for me for 35 years. I yelled, I made lots of noise. A mother bear, if it was a normal situation, would have heard that, even though it was near a creek. The experts I’ve talked to today told me it was totally predatory behavior. There was no warning. They said that bear wanted you—and they’re right, it wanted me.”

Woods isn’t sure why it happened, though he notes river levels in the area are extremely low for this time of year, and he suspects the bear’s behavior may be a reflection of a drought-affected ecosystem. However, he says the bear looked “vital” and not weakened or starving. Today, conservation officers confirmed the bear was in good health and weighed somewhere between 150 and 200 pounds.

As for what we can all learn from his ordeal, Woods is adamant about having bear spray at the ready and being well practiced in its use—if he’d been quicker at getting the safety cap off, the bear might still be alive, too.

“It has to be totally accessible,” he says. “Because it all happens so fast. The whole process, between seeing the bear charging up the hill until I sunk the hatchet in its head, was maybe 15 seconds, including me kicking it twice in the head. It was so fast, there just wasn’t any time to mess around with the clip.”

 

 

Woods will be back in the bush again soon, but the battle with the bear is making him think harder about being out alone.

“It’s going to make hunting a little more challenging,” he says. “I’ve been successful moose hunting by myself, but I’m thinking that’s going to be pretty hard to do. I think this is going to be with me for the long haul.”

This content was originally published here.

This content was originally published here.

This content was originally published here.

Eating edible weeds is an easy way to increase your garden’s productivity.  While everyone loves to bring in the harvest, weeding is most people’s least favorite part of gardening.  What if weeding could be harvesting?  When you know how to identify and use edible weeds, basic garden maintenance becomes more like a scavenger hunt.

Having children makes you think a lot about your own actions and motivations.  Not for any purposeful, metaphysical reason…but simply because they’re always asking, “Why?”

My 3-year old is uncommonly helpful, and she’s my regular foraging companion.  She’s great at spotting chanterelles and knows all about foraging tasty edible flowers.  Outside of foraging with mama, she’s a huge help weeding the garden.  She used to ask, “Is this a weed mama?” before pulling out an unknown plant.  Now the tiny forager in her asks, “What’s this plant?”

More often than not, I find myself explaining what it is, and how it can be used for both food and medicine.  That leads my inquisitive little one to ask the next logical question.  “If it’s food, then why are we pulling it up?”

Good question.

We spent the afternoon “weeding” our strawberry beds and harvested dozens of varieties of edible weeds.  Yes, we still pulled them up, because strawberries are amazing, and nothing gets between me and a homegrown strawberry, but we also ate them. 

Knowing how to identify edible weeds turns weeding into harvesting and makes the exercise a lot more fun, not to mention tasty.

List of Edible Weeds

Here’s a list to get you started eating wild weeds from A to Z.  I’ll keep adding to the list as I find more fun plants in the garden to spark my memory, but if I’ve missed one of your favorites leave me a note in the comments at the end.

Burdock (Arctium sp.)

With a 2+ foot long taproot, burdock can be particularly difficult to remove from the garden.  The sticky burrs are perfect for sticking to clothes, and I often find it growing alongside paths waiting to stick to clothing.  The sticky seeds can be prolific, and if one goes to seed at the edge of the garden you’ll have your work cut out for you the following year.

Good news, burdock is an edible weed and every part is tasty.  It’s actually cultivated as a vegetable in Asian cultures where it’s called gobo.  The root is often used in curries, or roasted like any other root vegetable, and we make a really effective anti-inflammatory burdock tincture with it.

Burdock flower stalks are also edible, and creamy centers taste like freshly steamed artichokes to me.  The leaves are edible too, and are great for wrapping dishes cooked in the campfire.  I also found a recipe for burdock leaf kraut in the book Fermented Vegetables, which contains all manner of unconventional and inspiring recipes.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

One of the earliest spring greens you can forage, chickweed can take over a garden fast.  It spreads quickly to form a low growing mat, but it only really thrives in the early spring with cool temperatures.  That’s enough though, to choke out young seedlings in the garden.  Harvest it young, so it doesn’t take over and enjoy it as a tasty snack right in the garden.  Or, bring it inside to make chickweed tincture,  a natural antibacterial used externally, or anti-inflammatory and antihistamine used internally.

Chickweed pesto is mild and tasty, and a great way to save a big harvest for later.  On the medical side of things, a chickweed salve is great for doctoring gardener’s hands after a long day weeding…

Cleavers/Bedstraw (Galium sp.)

Also known as bedstraw, cleavers has been used for centuries in the kitchen and home.  It was once dried for bed filling, and bundles of it were used as a rudimentary strainer for frontier and backwoods cooks.  Some species are used as a form of vegetable rennet to coagulate cheese, and the seeds have been roasted and used as a herbal coffee substitute.

The name cleavers comes from its herbal usage, since it’s noted for having the ability to “cleave out illness.”  I’ve used cleavers tincture successfully to treat urinary tract infections where it also has the added benefit of being a diuretic which helps move things along.

Cleavers is especially invasive and difficult to eradicate once established, so I work hard to keep this one out of the garden and mostly harvest it as an edible weed along woods edges.

Clover (Trifolium sp.)

I have a friend who absolutely hates clover because a clover patch means bees foraging nectar and she’s terrified of bees.  The bees have the right idea though, those clover flowers are sweet and tasty….and both bees and clover run rampant in my veggie garden.

Each flower contains a tiny drop of honeydew at its base, and rural children in New England spend summers harvesting the blossoms for a teeny tiny sweet treat.  The flowers are often made into clover tea.  The blossoms can also be ground into clover flour, which can replace flour in baked goods.  The blossoms can also be baked into things whole, like in these clover and strawberry cookies.  Clover greens are an edible wild salad green, though not one of my favorites.

Not just an edible weed, clover is also medicinal.  Herbalists recommend a tea for colds, flu, and coughs, and it’s also used to help treat skin conditions like eczema.  Studies show that red clover can help balance hormones in menopausal women, and my midwife specifically recommended I drink red clover tea during my pregnancy.

Curly Dock (Rumex sp.)

There are a lot of dock species (Rumex genus), all of them are edible weeds.  The leaves are cooked into curries or baked into chips, the seeds can be ground into dock flour that’s similar in some respects to buckwheat and the roots are cooked too.

Dock plants form long tap roots, and they’re persistent perennials, producing thousands of seeds each year.  Once one gets a foothold it’s hard to get them out of the garden unless you dig out the whole root system.  Luckily, the roots are not only edible but medicinal.  They’re used as a blood cleanser similar to burdock, but I’ll admit this is one of my least favorite medicines.  Few things taste worse than dock root to my palate, but plenty of people love them.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

More and more people these days know that dandelions are edible weeds, and many are willing to pay $5 for a bunch of dandelion greens on the shelf at the whole foods.  Still, there’s something deeply ingrained in our culture about our hatred for a dandelion-filled lawn.  Leave them if possible, there a great early spring nectar source for the bees.  In our garden, if left unchecked they’ll completely take over and we harvest them by the wheelbarrow full. 

Just about every part of a dandelion is useful as food or medicine, and there’s a pretty absurd variety of ways to use them.  The blossoms make lovely dandelion wine or dandelion ice cream for the kids.  The roots can be roasted and made into dandelion coffee, or steamed whole and eaten like carrots.  They also are a key ingredient in dandelion tincture and dandelion bitters, both of which are medicinal.  Even the unopened flower buds are edible, and they make a remarkably convincing wild foraged dandelion caper when pickled.  

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)

Though it’s considered one of the worst invasive weeds, garlic mustard happens to be really tasty.  The name gives you an idea of the taste, a bit garlic-y, a bit mustard-y, and basically green and mildly spicy.  Used sparingly, it makes a good salad green, or it can be cooked as it is in this garlic mustard frittata.

Personally, I’m less excited about using it as a green and more excited about using it as a seasoning.  This garlic mustard chimichurri sounds perfect.

Japanese Knotweed (Reynoutria japonica)

One of the most invasive weeds out there, and very difficult to eradicate.  Luckily, it’s also delicious, with a taste a lot like rhubarb raw and a bit like asparagus cooked.

I’m glad we don’t actually have any Japanese knotweed on our land, but I do go out of my way to forage it from a patch just up the road.  A tincture of the root is one of the few herbal treatments for Lyme disease, and the shoots can be used in all manner of recipes.

I wrote up a long list of Japanese knotweed recipes some time ago, including strawberry knotweed pie, and even a few cocktails like a knotweed gin and tonic.

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

One of the best natural remedies for bug bites and poison ivy, jewelweed is handy to have around.  I keep a few jars of jewelweed salve in the medicine cabinet just in case, and it’s come in handy a few times.

Jewelweed is also edible, and the seed pods taste a lot like walnuts.  Harvest carefully because they’re built to pop when touched, sending the seeds flying in all directions.  If you harvest very carefully though, you can enjoy that pleasant pop on your tongue followed by the taste of fresh walnuts right from the garden.

Lambs Quarter (Chenopodium album)

Another edible weed that grows prolifically in our garden, I tend to leave lambs quarter anywhere I can.  I love the sweet succulent taste of the young leaves.  It’s actually a form of wild quinoa, and you can harvest lambs quarter grain if you allow them to mature and go to seed.

The plants have a sheen on the underside of the leaves because they bio-accumulate minerals.  If dried, they can be burned to use as a wild foraged salt substitute.  Just dry the leaves, then burn them and save the ash.  

Mallow Species (Althaea sp.)

Mallow plants love moist rich soils, and they’re everywhere in our garden.  There’s a cultivated variety (Althaea officinalis) that’s grown in formal perennial gardens, and it was once used to make marshmallow candies.  There are also many varieties that just grow wild, readily self-seeding and taking over unweeded vegetable gardens. 

The variety we get here grows huge, about 4 feet tall and just as wide.  If they grow in an out of the way spot, I’m likely to leave them for their beautiful flowers and edible leaves.  The leaves are tasty salad green, and work well cooked into dishes like this mallow leaf ravioli.

Beyond their use as an edible weed, they’re one of my favorite remedies for dry coughs.  The roots contain soothing mucilage compounds that help to coat throats and protect mucous membranes.  The plant’s soothing nature makes it good for digestive and skin issues as well.

Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

One of my favorite perennial edible weeds, milkweed shoots taste a lot like asparagus when sauteed in butter.  Every stage of growth is edible, from the young shoots to the flowers to the unripe seed pods.  And at every stage of growth, it tastes a little different and results in a totally new vegetable.

I let milkweed grow in with my asparagus, particularly because I actually think milkweed shoots taste better than asparagus and also because I really love the intoxicating smell of their mid-summer blooms.

Be careful, some species of milkweed can be toxic and I only eat common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).  Be aware that milkweed also has some toxic look-alikes (Dogbane) and you need to be 100% certain on your identification.  I’d strongly suggest a good foraging guide, like The Forager’s Harvest, which contains detailed information on identifying and foraging milkweed.

For milkweed recipes, I’ve got quite a few tasty ones listed in this milkweed foraging guide, and there are even more in the book Forage, Harvest, Feast including a delicious looking milkweed blossom cordial that I’m going to make this summer.

Pineapple Weed (Matricaria discoidea)

Also known as wild chamomile, this little edible weed grew just about everywhere around my home in California.  It loves hot sandy soil, and if you have a warm climate garden with good drainage you’ll likely have plenty of wild pineapple weed.  Even here in Vermont, it grows all over our gravel driveway and finds its way into the dryer spots in the garden.

The blossoms look like chamomile, but without the white petals.  They have a mild sweet pineapple taste, thus the name, and they’re commonly made into tea.  I absolutely love this recipe for wildflower jam that uses pineapple weed and red clover as main ingredients.

Around here though, my little ones just love eating the tiny golden flowers fresh in the garden.

Plantain

Though it grows best in compacted soils, rather than fluffy garden beds, wild plantain still makes its way into garden paths and beds.  There’s a huge spreading patch of it at the entrance to my garden, and it’s a common weed in lawns and along sidewalks.

Herbalists know plantain as a potent medicinal, great for insect bites, stings, and minor cuts.  I keep a homemade plantain salve in my medicine cabinet, and we end up using it several times a week all summer.   

It’s also an edible weed that can be eaten like any other salad green.  The leaves can be a bit tough, but they’re a good substitute for spinach (like on this plantain leaf pizza).  They can also be made into leafy green chips using recipes for kale chips.

Need more inspiration?  Here are 10 things to make with plantain.

Purslane

I remember weeding out the purslane from my garden in southern California.  It was so vigorous in that hot desert heat!  These days, I actually plant purslane in my Vermont garden and tend it along with my salad greens.  Most of the world considers purslane to be a cultivated green, and it’s especially popular in the Mediterranean and the middle east where it thrives in the wild.

It has some of the highest naturally occurring levels of Omega 3’s in plants, along with a host of other nutrients that put it in the class of “superfoods.”   Try a simple purslane salad to get started, but then get creative…

Queen Anne’s Lace

Also known as wild carrots, that pretty well sums up Queen Anne’s Lace.  The root is a wild form of our domesticated carrot and tastes pretty similar.  Queen Anne’s Lace flowers and greens are also edible and can be made into dishes like this carrot top pesto or this floral soda.

The trick is, the plants can easily be confused with very toxic water hemlock.  When in bloom, I think it’s easy to tell them apart, but this is one mistake that can be deadly.  I’d recommend avoiding Queen Anne’s Lace until you’re really confident in your identification.  For more information on positively identifying this edible weed, read up on the difference between it and poison hemlock. 

Quickweed (Galinsoga parviflora)

Originally native to South America, quickweed has been introduced just about everywhere in the world.  It often doesn’t show up in gardens until later in the summer, but then it grows at an alarming rate, quickly outpacing everything else.  One day the garden is weed free, and a week later you could fill a garbage bag in just a few minutes with this prolific edible weed.

Forager Chef says it’s “the hardest working green I’ve met so far…It can be used raw, or cooked. Got a call from a farmer that the spinach was killed by hail? Don’t worry, just toss some Galinsoga in that pasta. While you’re at it, put it in the salad mix and on the fish entree, then throw the purchased microgreens in the compost where they belong, as fodder to grow interesting, edible weeds.”

The scientific name, galinsoga, is often mispronounced and it eventually took on the common name “gallant soldier” as a result.  There’s nothing particularly gallant about this weed, but it does soldier on all summer, remaining tender and edible well after flowering.

Since it’s a South American native, it’s incorporated into their traditional cuisine.  It’s a key ingredient in a dish called Ajiaco, a Columbian chicken stew.

Stinging Nettles (Urticia dioica)

Honestly, I really hate stinging nettles and I’m glad they’re not a problem in my garden.  My neighbors though, they have a huge stinging nettle patch taking over the corner of their garden, and I learned about it the hard when I walked through it in sandals…

Stinging nettles sting you see, and it can be quite painful.  Once cooked, the stinging leaves are absolutely delicious and lose their sting completely.  If you harvest with care, using gloves and long sleeves, foraging stinging nettle can be a really satisfying way to turn a menace into a meal.

Here are a few stinging nettle recipes to try:

Still need more inspiration?  Check out these 40+ Ways to use Stinging Nettles.

Thistle (Cirsium sp.)

Thistles are never fun to find in the garden, especially if you find them with bare feet.  All of them are edible to the best of my knowledge, and I’ve personally eaten bull thistle and Canada thistle.  The stalks are eaten like celery, and the roots can be cooked like any other root vegetable.

I’ve talked to some people that love them, mostly my more adventurous foraging friends, but I’d class them as a survival food that’s barely worth the bother.

Violets (Viola sp.)

Left unchecked, wild violets would absolutely take over my strawberry beds, and they love the shady rich soil underneath my rhubarb.  They’re common lawn weeds, sprouting up in moist shady spots, but without grass as competition, they’ll readily grow in sunny gardens too.

Every part of this beautiful weed is edible.  The flowers make a lovely violet jelly, and they add beauty to a wild greens salad.  The leaves can be eaten fresh or made into tea.  They’re also made into a medicinal salve to support the lymphatic system.

We have so many of them, this spring I posted to Instagram asking for creative ways to use violets…and I got a bunch of answers.  My favorite idea was a violet leaf pesto, and I’m planning on making that happen shortly.

Wood Sorrel (Oxalis spp.)

Though it’s not actually related to true sorrel, wood sorrel has a similar bright, lemon-y taste.  The most common edible garden weed type has three-part clover-like leaves and tiny yellow flowers make it easy to identify in the garden.  There are other wild varieties, hundreds in fact, with different blossom colors.

I find wood sorrel to be really refreshing when weeding, and I’ll happily munch the leaves fresh right in the garden.  

That’s my list, mostly harvested right from our garden.  What did I miss?  What are your favorite edible weeds to pull (I mean harvest) from the garden?

Looking for more information on edible wild plants?  Check out any of these foraging guides:

This content was originally published here.

This content was originally published here.