Pineapple Weed Vs. Black Medic

 May and June are the best time of year to gather Pineapple Weed buds. Pineapple Weed has petal-less flowers that make really calming tea, in fact Pineapple Weed is closely related to Camomile. Pineapple Weed loves poor quality soil like driveways and empty lots. I love the smell of the buds. I like to squeeze a bud between my fingers and sniff the fruity aroma. It smells kinda like....... pineapple!

 Another yellow bud that is about the same size that grows in the same places is Black Medic aka Yellow Trefoil.

Can you see the difference? Above is Black Medic. Below is Pineapple Weed.

And here they are growing side by side:

Black Medic is a legume and has clover type leaves.

Pineapple Weed has feathery leaves.

The buds of Pineapple Weed mature into seeds. The seeds fall off of the flower head leaving cone shaped spires.

And hopefully they fall on some poor quality soil and grow a bunch more Pineapple Weed next year!

Nanking Cherry | Wild Edible

 

I have learned a new wild edible. This is the Nanking Cherry. They are succulent tart little cherries grown on a shrub.

Do you remember this flower that bloomed in March that I saw during my morning walks but didn't know what kind of flowers is was?

Now on my morning walks I see these cherries. I was able to look up the shrub now that it has leaves and berries and make a sure identification.

Nanking Cherries are a drought resistant shrub. I need to get a bunch of these planted in my yard. I think they would make a great hedge. The cherries are tart, delicious, and prolific. All along each branch there are cherries up and down. They would make good pies and jam I think. The trouble would be getting the pits out. They have a miniature cherry pit in each fruit. 

 For further reading check out this page:

https://www.foragecolorado.com/post/nanking-cherry-prunus-tomentosa-foraging-identification

Nature This Week

 

Can you smell the lovely Lilac perfume through your screen? 

A baby bunny burrow. They were so new!

A rat snake. Everyone wanted a turn holding it.

We found some morels! My first time mushroom hunting since being married. 

These oak flowers, catkins, were so pretty in the afternoon sun. Much like earrings dangling, all eye catching in the sunlight.

April showers..............

Bring May flowers. ☺️

Fields of Purple

 

There are a few types of purple flowers that show up in early spring and cover the fields with their vivid hue. I can sometimes confuse two of these ground covers: Henbit and Purple Dead Nettle.

  The flowers in the pictures here are Henbit.

Purple Dead Nettle is another purple plant that will cover fields at this time of year. The top foliage is actually where a majority of the purple display comes from. The flowers are also purple but they don't stand out quite as much. 

I don't have any pictures of Purple Dead Nettle that I personally took. I found the picture below on Pixabay.

I found a very helpful web page on Identify that Plant .com that has good pictures and explanations on how to identify these purple plants. Please check it out if these topics interest you! They have a lot of good pictures and even talk about a third plant that can be mistaken for these two: Creeping Charlie. 

A New Wild Edible For Me!

This is called Autumn Olive. I learned this wild edible from a the website: North East Superfoods. Here is link to the Autumn Olive article on North East Superfoods .com. I recommend that you read their article. They have good pictures and explain how to distinguish Autumn Olive from the poisonous Honeysuckle (pictured below). Once you know what to look for it is hard to confuse the two. They are quite different.

Autumn Olive have one pit. (Like tiny plums.)

Honeysuckle have multiple seeds per berry.

Autumn Olive are speckled.

Honeysuckle have no speckles.

Autumn Olive have red flesh 

Honeysuckle have orange gel.

Those are the main ways to tell the berries apart besides all the differences in leafs.

We liked the flavor of the Autumn Olives. They were tart and mildly sweet. They had a good amount of flavor. They were not bland. If I had to compare it to another fruit I would say it reminded me of a plum, the part of the plum right next to the skin. You know how plum skin has the most flavor? It is like the ratio of skin to flesh on the Autumn Olive lends to it having a more pungent flavor.

If you get a chance, check out the link and hopefully you, too, can try and enjoy Autumn Olive!

 

Pecans!

 

I was so surprised and delighted to find this pecan tree down our lane. It is not on our property but it is close to the road on an empty lot.

When I was a young girl my family would travel to Arkansas just about every October to visit my Great Uncle Tony. Down the street from his house stood a big old pecan tree in a Church yard. Uncle Tony knew the people who attended church there. He said they wouldn't mind if we collected the pecans. 

There were so many pecans on the ground. We'd fill a couple grocery sacks in a few minutes and bring them back north to enjoy for a couple weeks.

It was a special memory. Pecans were a rare treat.

I knew there was a variety of pecan that grows this far north but I had never seen one nor did I expect to. 

I could hardly believe my eyes when, as we drove by one day, I looked out at the nut clusters on this tree and thought, "Those look like pecans. Can it be?"

Yes, it can be! I walked over with the children and we picked up a few handfuls. We cracked them and enjoyed them. What a treat!

Lambsquarters | Wild Edibles

 

Lambsquarters is a common weed that is usually very easy to grow. For some reason there was no established presence of lambsquarters in our yard when we moved here a few years ago. Disturbed soil is all the invitation that Lambsquarters needs to come take up residence. True to form Lambsquarters seeds have found their way to my garden beds, finally. I am sure to never have a shortage of lambsquarters from now on. Lambsquarters self sow prolifically, and you know that I going to be letting my lambsquarters go to seed. :-)

Lambsquarters is a very easy to identify wild edible. The leaves are triangular in shape with rough toothed edges. The underside of the leaves have a powdery white coating this coating is on the topside of young leaf clusters. The stems can have purple streaks. Sometimes this purple color is a feature of the young baby leaves at the tips of branches.

I found this highly accurate while also humorous quote on Sam Sycamore's web page about Wild Spinach:

"Lambsquarters is yet another example of an extraordinarily common and nutritious edible wild plant that most farmers and gardeners exterminate in order to make room for their inferior lettuces and wimpy salad greens." 

I couldn't agree more. Lambsquarters is easy to grow, easy to harvest, and easy to prepare. And it has a mild flavor. You can use lambsquarters in any application that you would use spinach. And that is simply because Lambsquarters is wild spinach! 

I like to eat lambsquarters raw in salads, and in sandwiches. I use lambsquarters in cooked dishes like pasta, egg casserole, potato hash, and soup.

The tender stems can be eaten raw like broccoli stalks dipped in ranch dressing. 

Lambsquarters leaves can be harvested by picking them individually or (what I prefer) by snapping off the young few inches of leafy stems at the ends of branches. By continuously clipping back new growth you cause the plant to branch out and turn into a shrub like shape. This gives you much more area to harvest from.

When I harvest lambsquarters I like to pop it into a bowlful of water. The leaves with retain their crispness if they are in water which is nice if you are eating them raw. Even if the lambsquarters has been picked for a while and gone limp it will perk right up if you pop it into a bowl of water.

Have you tried Lambsquarters? Do you have a favorite way to eat it? Please let us know in the comment section!

Skin Salve

In this blog post, I tell the story of my first experience making herbal oil infusions and how I used the infusions to make a healing salve.
Come along to hear all about it!

 I am using these jars of calendula infused oil and plantain infused oil to make a skin salve.

I hope it will be a good recipe for diaper rash and minor skin problems like bites and scrapes.

Calendula has antibiotic properties and promotes healing of the skin. It is real good for cold sores and chicken pox lesions.

Plantain is one of the best herbs for stings. Anytime I am stung by a bee I pick the closest plantain leaf, chew it quickly, and smear the crushed leaf onto the sting area. It relives the pain immediately and keeps the tissue from swelling. It really works! Without the plantain I swell up for two days and itch really bad after the swelling has gone down.

Here is the story of these herbal infusions that I have:

Three years ago, back in 2019, during the summer I grew calendula. I picked the flower heads to dry. By the end of summer I had a good quantity of flower heads. I learned about using the calendula to make an oil infusion to be used in an ointment. I decided to try this technique. I, also, wanted to make a plantain oil infusion because I knew plantain's properties would compliment those of calendula flowers.

I bought some organic cold pressed extra virgin oil especially for this purpose. I dried a bunch of plantain leafs and packed them into a quart jar. I packed my calendula flowers into a pint jar. Then I poured the oil over the herbs.

I remember thinking about how long I would have to wait for the infusions to complete. It would 8 weeks before I could use them. So long!

But, the time flew by. I had other projects to be working on and a baby to get ready for. One thing led to the next. The baby was born, a few months later we moved, that whole year (2020) we were traveling for work, once we got back home we settled into life. I was busy. There was another baby to get ready for, a 1st grader to homeschool, dresses to sew,.......

The oil infusions got pushed to the back of the cabinet and we're forgotten.

Three years later I am finally pulling them out and putting them to use. I am so excited to be making my first ointment with home grown herbs!

This is my recipe:

2 1/2 cups of Plantain Infused Oil

1 1/2 cup Calendula Infused Oil

1 cup Raw Bee's Wax

1 T. Shea Butter*

*The Shea butter was sent to me as a sample when I ordered my bee's wax. I didn't have a use for it and threw it in with the melting oils just to put it to good use.

Melt the oils and wax together, gently.

Pour the hot mixture into clean jar or containers.

You can see my messy work station:

I plan on using this ointment for a lip balm, chapped skin, bug bites, minor cuts and scrapes, razor burn, and diaper rashes. I got some of this ointment on my hands while I was working with it and I can tell you that it is definitely moisturizing!

Initially, I thought the extra time would make these infusions more potent, but the more I think about it, I wonder if they lose thier efficacy over time. I guess I will just have to experiment. At any rate this ointment is going to be a great lip balm and moisturizer.

Can you relate with how time marches on? I can hardly believe that three years have gone by!

Paw Paw Time!

 We went to the Paw Paw Grove this week 

 to see if there were any ripe fruits. 

 We found a few!

You can read about our Paw Paw harvest in 2020

in a blog post HERE.

Paw Paws are native to the North American continent.

The fruits have a very tropical taste and aroma.

They are a special treat!

This is the time of year when many 

treats are being harvested.

Apples, pears, and grapes,

are a few that come to mind.

It has been several years since I have had

any local pears or grapes.

Genesis 1:11 
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,
 the herb yielding seed, 

and the fruit tree yielding fruit
 after his kind, whose seed is in itself, 

upon the earth: 
and it was so.

Have you been busy with harvesting

or preserving?

Let me know your favorite fruit!

Herb Gathering

 

I had grandiose ideas of growing all types of herbs for tea this summer to enjoy all winter.

I wanted Anise, Lemon Balm, Chamomile, and Borage to name a few. But, I either didn't start enough plants or they never came up. :(

My Lemon Balm is growing good. I think I need to allow it to establish itself this first year before I start harvesting from it.

I left my Sage behind at our old house. I have really been missing Sage as a seasoning, especially in Breakfast Sausage.

I threw some Sage seeds in the ground this Spring, but they never came up. I think I'll start a few Sage seedlings this Summer. They should have enough time to get established enough to make it through the Winter.

Wait.............. What is this?

Look what I just found while weeding! It is a baby Sage! So, one did sprout!:) I will give it some special attention over the rest of the growing season. Hopefully it will be thriving by the time Fall is upon us.

Even though I don't have as many tea herbs as I had hoped, I have been cutting and drying as many as I can.

I have Lavender, Mint, Marigolds, and a little Borage. I really would love to have some Chamomile. I have a lot of trouble starting Chamomile. I only have done so successfully one year. I might be better off foraging Pineapple Weed, since it is Wild Chamomile, and has no trouble growing. I see it in almost every driveway. I would have to be careful and find out that no weed killer has been sprayed on it, though.

I hope these will make a good tea blend for the Winter.

Do you have any favorite herbs for tea making? I'd love to hear what they are!

Psalm 104:14

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;

"Sour Grass," Or, Wood Sorrel

This was my first wild edible! 

When I was a little girl my Daddy showed me this plant and called it, "Sour Grass."

And he showed me the seed pods and called them, "Pickles."

He ate some and he told me I could, too. Yum! Boy, was it sour! But, I have always liked sour flavors.

The common name for what my Dad and I call, "Sour Grass," is Wood Sorrel. The scientific name for this variant of Wood Sorrel is Oxalis stricta.

Oxalis stricta contains Oxalic acid and is a good thirst quencher, and, also, just a yummy sour snack.

The leaves are comprised of three, heart shaped, leaflets.

The flowers have five, yellow, petals.

The seed pods stand upright and are pointed at the tip. They look like tiny okra pods.

All parts of Sour Grass are edible, leaves, stems, flowers, and seed pods. I recommend eating the seed pods before the seeds have matured and become hard.

Sour Grass and Sour Grass Pickles are a delectable and special edible weed to me. 

I am glad to have memories of my Father teaching me my first wild edible plant. He cultivated a love for learning about life in the natural world around me. He would take me out in the back yard and ask me, "What kind of tree is that?" Then he would tell me what kind of tree it was. Whenever we'd take walks he'd quiz my knowledge. It was like a fun game we'd play.

Now I am privileged to be able to do the same thing with my children. Their little minds pick up information so quickly. They really love being outside and learning about the plants and animals! And, I really love getting to teach them what I know!