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>To wild plants eaters (Alan, Jean-Claude, etc):
>
>How often do you collect plants? Do you eat them immediately, or store
>them for the next days, or both? How much wild plants (let's say in
>grams per day) do you eat? Can you give an estimate for each one of
>the following categories?
>
> -leafy vegetables
> -fruits
> -roots, tubers
> -other starchy vegetables
> -nuts
> -mushrooms
> -other (that I might have forgotten).
>
> Hard for me to get precise , because they are few factors that enter into
play and make my consomption of wild plant very variable.
1st. the line between wild versus not wild is , in my situation hard to
define.
Our island have been the fruit basket of British Colombia before they
started to irrigate the okanagan valley where now, most of the comercial
fruits come from.
i rely here on fruits and nuts trees that could have been planted by humans
long time ago ( up to 80 years ago ) then abandonned and got wild( walnuts,
cherries apple pear .plums, filbert) Or fruits and nuts trees sown by birds
and other wild animals and could be naturel hybrides of dometic and wild
plants ( cherries , filbert. plums, apples, walnuts , specially)
In this island we have 600 diferents varieties of apples, plums, pears, so
lot of genetic potential for naturel hybridation.
on top of that i am practicing "the naturel way of farming "( no tilling,
fertilising, weeding , treatment of diseases or pruning ) that makes
domestics plants looks and taste wild
i am planting or favorising wilds plants in my garden too ( wild berries
specially)
Lot of wilds plants here are not natives here but came with the first
settlers and established themselves wild.
2nd, the seasonal avability of wild plants is very fluctuating ( there is a
time for young shoots , one for flower buds , one for fruit, one for roots
and one for nuts)
3rd
The circonstances in my life change my interest in wild plants :
i am going to harvest wild blueberries in the mountains in october for ex, i
do kayaking trips and there take advantage of harvesting wild plants and
shellfishs
When i am sleeping outdoor or in my tipi in the garden i automatically
harvest more . the winter in my confortable warm house , stop me to want to
go outside, to just eat .( but i go hiking every day with my baby and take
allways advantage of a wild food coming in my way.
4th i just move 3 months ago in a new property and had to let go of my 5
years work to establish the diversity of wild plants in my previous piece of
land.The 5 acres new piece of land is totally wild now, but ironically is
very poor in diversity (coniferous and alder forest with undergrowth of
salal berries (nourishing berry) so the praticality of having to go farther
limit my attraction to wild plants.
5th i am dealing with my obsession about food (thru 12 step program) and
found less compusilve to eat the chicoree bought at the store than thinking
all day long about where is the food in the wild( if i was living in a tribe
, the work of harvesting being shared, i will not need to think so much
about it)
whow , my life is too complex to enter easely into statistics.
Fruits are abondantly eaten by me and my baby in season ( salmon berries,
thimble berries, raspberries , strawberries, salal berries, all vaccinum
family, indian plum. pacific crabapple, gooseberries and currants...)
leaves and shouts are very much appreciated in the spring to change from the
chicoree and lettuce bought in the winter( dandelion, corn salad,nettles,
cress , chickweed, hops, ...)
Other greens are favored during the summer ( wild spinachs , bucwheats,...)
roots ( salsifis, wild carrot, burdock, semi wild self sown turnips and
radiches, thisles...)
tubers( jerusalem artichoke, apios ( i lost my seeds if somebody can send
some... thank you)
cattail...)
some fruits or leaves that i eat seem to have starch in it (hawwthorn,
arbutus ,mallows, cattail, salal)
nuts, (filbert, coniferous seeds, hickory, japanese walnuts and walnuts...)
mushrooms , i have been a huge cooked wild mushroom eater in the past so i
am still not to attracted to them raw, but my son is )
you forgot about saps (mapples is abondant here but not so producing than
in the east, and when i cut a tree in the spring i harvest the juice)
and pollen ( cattail pollen is easy to harvest and tasty )
ieat too the wild thistle "head" just before the flower( like artichoke) and
some other buds
Sorry for the percentages , i will have to estimate in a one year period to
give something realistic, till now i just ate without counting..
All the plants that i gave are eaten in "quantity"( less than their
cultivated counterparts,)
But they are more plants that i eat in "medicinal or homeopathic "
quantities ( aromatics and medicinals plants) ( oregon grape is the one that
i ate 1 week ago, and licorice fern root yesterday :my son spitted it out ,
It just ate a banana before but was curious about trying that new food)
thanks
Jean-claude
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