Lilac and turquoise porcelain berries

During the past few years I have made a point of paying regular visits to the waterfront in Tallman Park(on the Hudson River, just north of the border with New Jersey.)  This is a place I’ve known for over 30 years, and being a naturalist, I have made mental notes of the plant life that has visited the area during that time.

About 5 or 6 years ago, I spotted a porcelain berry plant that I had only previously seen in the marshes at Cape May.  It was such a beautiful and exotic plant, that I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want it growing there.  But it was considered invasive, and therefore a nuisance to be “managed”.

Porcelain Berry Vine “Tree sculpture”

On my own property at the first signs of the porcelain berry vine, I will eagerly pull it up, roots and all.  It is a voraciously greedy plant that spreads both above and under the ground, covering everything in its path, and choking out all other species, including the tallest of trees, until all that can be seen are the silhouettes of the dead skeletons supporting the green mass of foliage.

Over time I have watched the waters edge of the park transformed by these plants, that have now spread out into the phragmites marshes and are advancing up the hillside into the park.  I have often wondered why there was never that same urgency in this park as there has been in Cape May to eradicate the vine, before it was too late.  Alas, we have now gone beyond that point.

Having said that, I am bound to admit that there is an exotic beauty that come along with the transformation of the park, that has given this area a mystical beauty that it never possessed before.  Close up, one is greeted by the multiple colors of the berries and from a distance there is a sculptural magic to the grand displays of the vine cloaked landscape.

Porcelain Berries are closely related to grapes and are consequently edible.  For those of you who enjoy bland food with a slightly prickly aftertaste, they would make the ideal snack food, especially if you also enjoy a slimy texture.  However, since they are so uniquely interesting, they can be used as a colorful garnish, without fear of accidentally eating one or two.

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The Hunger Games is about survival, but then so is life itself.

Many of us are fortunate enough to lead comfortable existences where we take shelter, food and water for granted  But for many people across the world, that comfortable life often ends very suddenly, and they are left to depend on their wits and knowledge to survive.  They may not be fighting an enemy determined to destroy them as in the story, but their survival is just as dependent on their knowledge and abilities.

Disasters happen every day, such as hurricanes and tornados, that leave people stranded or homeless, where often they must depend on their skill and wits to stay alive until help arrives (if it arrives at all!).

This is why, even we who live in the “cradle of civilization” should always be prepared for such eventualities.

The true hunger games will likely happen when the industrial food chain breaks down and food suddenly becomes scarce (which is a strong argument for local agriculture and vegetable gardens).

One might store food in readiness for such an event, but just as in the story of The Hunger Games, one has to be able to hold on to it.  When there are a lot of starving people roaming around, things will get nasty and personal food stores will be prime targets.

The safest survival stores you can have, is knowledge.

Those who can turn to nature for shelter, water and nourishment will stand a far greater chance of survival.  This is why I have always felt it very important to develop my basic life skills and learn what plants can be eaten and which ones are poisonous.  My knowledge of wild foods and primitive skills has given me an inner confidence that has taken me through life.

Living off the land in an emergency is not easy,

nor is it necessarily very pleasant, however, it can mean the difference between life and death.  A knowledge of the medicinal uses of common plants can also be invaluable when there is nowhere else to turn.  The healing properties of common weeds such as plantain could stave off a serious infection when it is applied to an injury.  Common yarrow has historically been employed to stop bleeding on the battlefield and shepherds purse will help with internal bleeding.  We don’t have to wait for the arrival of a silver parachute sent by some distant benefactor, if we know how to make use of the herbal pharmacy that surrounds us.  Nor need we go hungry.

Of course, there are many other nature crafts and skills that would serve us in a survival situation.

Knowing how to build shelter, make fire, find water, fish, trap and hunt using only what nature provides, are skills that we may never need, yet given a true emergency situation, this ancient knowledge could mean the difference between surviving and becoming another statistic.

The post How to Survive the Hunger Games – Suburban Foragers’ Style – part I appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

There’s a big hoopla about West Nile Virus right now and I wonder what is really behind it.  So few peoplehave ever contracted it, and very few have died from it.
In fact, you stand more chance of dying by falling off a donkey.

It is hardly a reason to go spraying millions of gallons of poison across the landscape, in the hopes of killing off the mosquito population.  So why aren’t they out there spraying for donkeys?  It’s just as ridiculous.

Rather than poisoning the area for the rest of its inhabitants (including bees), a less toxic approach to the problem is to make ourselves less desirable to the mosquitos.

When I’m out in nature, I resort to a number of tricks to keep those flying critters at bay.

I’ve had some success using plants extracts, like marigold and catnip.

On a trip to Maine, I found the woods to be full of mushrooms (which I didn’t eat) and mosquitos (which did eat me). I had noticed that the fields around there were covered in Tansy plants.  That evening, I crushed some tansy leaves and flowers and slowly sautéed them in some coconut oil, for about 3 hours then drained off the resultant oil.  The following morning, I lathered myself with this makeshift repellent and went back to the woods.  I was delighted with how effective it was.

I’ve experimented with various herbs for smudging, where a bundle of dried herbs is burned and the smoke used to drive out everything from insects to evil spirits.

It is usually accompanied by a ritual or prayer performed while the smudge stick is being waved around a room or a person.  White sage is the most popular herb to use, but in the east I generally use dried mugwort which smolders well and deters them skeeters.  I’ve often added strips of cedar bark or lavender for a different aroma.  In either case, it works pretty well.

When I’m camping, I often build a fire, even on a hot day, as wood smoke is very effective.

The smokier you smell the less the mozies like you.  After a couple of days without bathing, nothing (or nobody) wants to be near you.  Sometimes, when the little critters are particularly bad, wiping mud on your skin helps, but it is not too comfortable, and tends to scare the guests at garden parties.

There’s a few don’ts with biting insects.  Don’t wear perfume.  Don’t wear bright colored clothes and don’t breath.  That last one is a toughy, but carbon dioxide is like a magnet to those little buggers.  However, chewing on garlic helps.  They don’t like garlic, so eat it regularly when you are in the woods.  Besides, it helps boost your immune system.  I like to gather and pickle field garlic bulbs.  They make a tasty bug repellent snack.

As Tony Isaacs points out in his recent article on the Natural News Website,

there is a safe, non-toxic insect repellent from Herbalist Debra Nuzzi-St. Claire that suggests using the formula:

* 1/2 ounce citronella oil

* 1/4 ounce lavender oil

* 1/8 ounce pennyroyal oil

* 1/8 ounce tea tree oil

* 1/8 ounce jojoba oil

I’ve used a very similar repellent and found it to be a pleasant and effective alternative to the chemical sprays on the market.

Of course, one of the best protections against diseases, is a healthy immune system.  This requires eating fresh nutritious foods and drinking teas made from immunity-boosting herbs, such as echinacea, elderberry (and flowers), astragalus, goldenseal, oregano and heal-all.  You can buy these as ready made dried teas or gather and dry your own.

However, since your chances of dying from West Nile disease is about 7,500,000 to 1, I wouldn’t go getting bent out of shape about it.  The bottom line is, you should be careful when riding a donkey and always take what the media is feeding you with a pinch of salt (preferably sea salt!)

The post What to do About West Nile Virus? A non-toxic pesticide free natural solution appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

Hops, like valerian, are a traditional herbal remedy for anxiety, restlessness and insomnia.

You may be familiar with hops in association with beer brewing (where it is used as an anti-bacterial agent and for flavoring brews). I am simply happy to brew up a relaxing tea for those nights I have trouble winding down to sleep. When I decided to take an indefinite break from alcohol consumption, I swapped out my nightly beer for hops tea to get a similar calming, sleepy effect without the nasty hangover. If you are living sober and want a good substitute for beer to help soothe you, try some hops tea. The active ingredient in hops is a chemical component called dimethylvinyl carbinol, a known sedative and hypnotic.

This week Paul, Adrienne and I rescued a mess of hops for our friend Charlie. He had planted hops in his lush perennial garden and ended up with more hops than he knew what to do with, and didn’t want to see them go to waste. Paul noted that hops are in the Cannabis family, Cannabidaceae, making it the legal cousin of marijuana (that explains its mellowing effect). He also mentioned that you can fill a pillow with hops for soothing rest to give as a crafty, healing gift.

What are hops?

Hops are the cones (flowers) of a vigorous climbing perennial herb, Humulus lupulus, whose name sounds like a magical herb or spell out of Harry Potter.

How to find hops

If you don’t have a friend like Charlie to invite you to pick hops, you can keep an eye out in the late summer for a plant that climbs like a honeysuckle. If you need help you can sign-up for our workshops, or download the Suburban Foragers iPhone app as a high-tech guide (coming 2013), or buy our weather-resistant guide for a low-tech reference to take into the field.

How to harvest hops

Hops are ready to harvest when they are green and papery. Look inside for golden pollen-like lupin and give it a sniff for that hoppy beer fragrance. Pluck the cones (flowers) off the vine with your fingers or harvest entire clusters by clipping off the lateral vines. When you get home lay them out to dry in a ventilated area out of the direct sun. You may simply spread them on a sheet in an unlit room by a breezy window or under a fan for about 3 days. Or you may hang the lateral vine clippings from hooks or strings in a breezeway for 3 days. When they have dried, place them in an airtight jar in a dark cupboard. Some harvesters suggest freezing them in an airtight bag. They will keep for a year before they lose their potency.
Here’s an excellent how to video on harvesting hops. Ben shows the difference between mature and immature hops.

Brewing hops tea

To make a non-alcoholic homebrew use about 3-5 hop cones per cup of tea. Simply pour boiling water over them, cover and steep for 5-20 minutes. This is a bitter brew (which I like), but you may sweeten it up with honey or sweet herbs like mint.

Hops Tea

Edibility

The young leaves of Humulus Lupulus can be eaten as a wild food.

Poisonous Look Alikes

None

Warnings

According to the Plants for the Future entry on hops some people have experienced skin and eye irritation. Some depressed people have felt worse from the sedative effects. They advise to avoid hops during pregnancy (antispasmodic) and with breast, uterine and cervical cancers.

Do not let your dog eat hops. Hops can cause malignant hyperthermia, fatal in dogs.Source Wikipedia.

Paul, Adrienne and I can vouch that we have not personally experienced nor have known anyone to have experienced the side effects mentioned above.

What experience have you had with hops? Please share! We welcome your feedback, questions and personal experience.

The post Hip Hop Hooray for Humulus lupulus! appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

Meet the newest ladies to join our project!

A few Mondays ago we drove about an hour upstate and picked up 20 beautiful Redstar hens and 1 super sassy Araucana!
We’d like to give a big ol’ thanks to Orrin Pierson up at Pierson’s farm for selling us these lovely already-laying hens.
The hens love to walk around the property and the woods, eat worms and seeds, scratch for buried treasures, drink clean water, eat ticks, sneak inside the house and they love to socialize!

The chickens can often be found contemplating the meaning of life, and asking themselves questions like “Why am I here?”, “What does it mean to be a chicken?”and “What’s under that leaf?”

No conclusions yet.

They are super docile and we can easily just walk right up to them and pick them up. Except Ms. Sassy Pants, the Araucana. She’s pretty skiddish and runs very fast.

We are in the process of renovating a shed on the property to be able to permanently house our chickens. In the meantime, the ladies are being housed in a temporary coop that we put together with some fencing, a tarp, scraps of wood, and big poles/branches from the forest.

Hens prefer dark cozy spaces to lay eggs, and three or four hens will share one nest. We have 10 laying boxes for our 21 chickens. The boxes have dry leaves from around the land on the bottom. Big branches go across the coop at all different heights, and are supported by holes in the fence and secured by twine. The branches are there so that the hens can roost on them at night while they sleep.

What is it like taking care of these ladies?

Well our daily schedule looks a bit like this: Someone goes out around 6:30am and gives the girls some fresh food and clean water. We leave them in the coop until around 10:00am for now to make sure they get used to laying eggs inside the boxes, as opposed to around the yard. Around 10:00am we’ll let them out to roam the property, collect whatever eggs are in the boxes, and give them clean water if necessary. Once it gets dark out, we make sure there are 21 chickens in the coop, collect any eggs, and close them up for the night. They have been laying between 8 and 20 gorgeous brown eggs every day!

So, why is it important to us to have chickens?

Getting chickens was one step in becoming self-sufficient as a community.

On a larger scale, by getting fresh eggs every day from the chickens in our backyard, we have lessened our dependence on a food system that is fossil fuel dependent, chemical dependent, destructive to nature and is controlled by people and corporations that do not work to serve us, the Earth, or any of it’s inhabitants. That is not the kind of industry we want to be supporting with our dollars, or the kind of food we want to be bringing into our bodies.
Besides the political aspects of raising chickens, they serve very important functions in our system. The chickens are able to convert unusable materials, like grass, into something that we can eat, like eggs! The chickens also poop all over the yard, fertilizing the grass which will grow so they can eat it again! When they poop in their coop, we can easily compost it and use it in our garden. As the season progresses in our garden, the chickens can be used as little helpers in tilling up the soil, eating pests, and getting rid of crops that are done producing. When the chickens get a bit older and produce less and less, we can borrow a rooster to fertilize the eggs so we can propagate more chickens. Once they stop laying for good, we can make some tasty chicken soup!

Plus, they eat ticks…..Let me repeat, they eat TICKS!!!!

And that’s what’s up….

Eastern Light Project

an alternative to free range chickens, a mobile chicken coup or “ark”

The post Blog: What’s Up? Chicken Butt!! Meet our Free Range Backyard Chickens! appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

More and more suburbanites decide to start raising backyard laying flocks every season and most people have little or no experience with farm animals. Last year I started my first flock after a winter of research and design on chicken housing and management systems. Although the most popular method of raising laying hens is a permanent coop and run, I strongly advise people not to raise chicken using this method. In a coop and run system chickens are in the exact same place everyday and in a short time will eat and scratch up every bit of vegetation and bugs. Additionally permanent areas smell a lot and require frequent scooping of poop. Many people think that “free range” is the best possible way to raise chickens but the truth is soils and pastures will be much more productive and healthy with a chance to rest. “Free range”  hang out in the spots with the food they like and do not let the land rest. They will also poop and lay eggs in places you would never imagine and get eaten by hawks and other wildlife without a guardian watchdog.

Housing

For suburbanites I suggest using a mobile chicken ark because they provide birds with new pasture everyday, provide protection from predators and look nice. Chicken arks are two story mobile structures with open bottoms so birds can forage in a new area everyday and roost at night. Chicken arks are practical for suburbanites because most people already have a lawn in there yard they could move the ark on.

Chores

My daily chicken chores consist of moving the ark to a new spot, refilling the water, refilling the feed and collecting eggs. When my family is busy working and at school the chickens forage in the pasture.  In the evening when everyone is home we let the girls out of the ark to fly around and  eat dessert! The girls love scratching in the worm filled compost and wood chip piles. They often chase each other around with worms in their mouths until dust when they return to their roosts and we close the door so no raccoons enter at night.

Feed and water

All kitchen scraps including meat can go to the chickens and can make up  part of their diet. Two common misconceptions about raising chickens on pasture are that supplemental grain in not necessary and that chickens are vegetarians. Even in the late spring when everything is lush the birds still need supplemental grain to be healthy. I recommend Natures Best Organic Layer Pellets which is based in Pennsylvania. Currently I am experimenting with growing plants chickens like so they get a more diverse diet and because grain prices are going up everyday.  Plants chickens love are mulberries (all berries), sunflowers, amaranth, lambs quarters, French sorrel, squash seeds, comfrey and many more.

Birds

For suburbanites I recommend getting just laying hens and no roosters because neighbors will most likely complain about the noise of roosters. Hens are not very loud if they have what they want. The breeds that I have are Speckled Sussex, Americana, Buff Brahman and Cuckoo Moran. I purchased the birds at Midsummer Farm (certified organic) in Warwick, NY where I also learned most of what I know about chickens. Mark and Barbara offer many workshops about raising chickens and farming.

http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp

http://www.midsummerfarm.com/heirloompoultry.htm

an alternative to the chicken ark, free range chickens

The post Blog: How to Raise Backyard Chickens in a Mobile Chicken Coop appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

WILD BLACK CHERRY SAUCE By Lisa Caccamise

Makes about 3/4 cup

2 cups black cherries, no need to pull the stems as they will be strained out along with the pits.

water to cover

1/4 cup sugar or more to taste

1.  Add cherries and water to a medium pot and bring to a boil.

2.  Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, then uncover and simmer another 15-30 minutes or until cherries are soft and liquid is reduced by 1/2.

3.  Cool slightly.

4.  Add cherries to a food mill, or to a fine sieve and mill or press the cherries until the seeds release and the juice strains into a clean pot.

5.  Add sugar to a taste.

6.  Bring the liquid, if watery, to a boil and reduce until desired thickness.

to read more about black cherries, click here

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Every August, you can find black cherry trees covered in drooping clusters of shiny ripe fruit, like thousands of threaded beads. These cherries are smaller and more tart than the domestic varieties.  They grow in elongated racemes and appear to be more like berries on little stalks.  However, you will find that each “berry” contains an unmistakable cherry pit.

They are not as sweet as regular cherries, but their tannic tartness makes them ideal for making jam, jelly, syrups and wine.  However, despite their being considered unpalatable, I really enjoy their sweet/sharp flavor straight from the tree, and will happily spend time munching away on them as a refreshing snack, whilst out walking.

The bark of the young tree is used for its medicinal properties, mainly as a cough remedy and sedative.  However, avoid eating the leaves, as they contain cyanide, which reaches toxic levels once they are crushed or begin to wilt.  Many cattle and horses have died from ingesting them.  The pits are also poisonous, although they have to be crushed in order to release their cyanide content, so fear not, if you accidentally swallow one or two. They’ll just pass on through.

Unless you have a cherry pitter, removing all those pits can prove to be very time consuming.  You can try rolling the fruit between two cutting boards to loosen up the pits, but this can be very messy.  All in all, you won’t get a lot of fruit at the end of the day, so I’d recommend having some apples on hand.  I’d recommend crab apples, but they are just as labor intensive as the cherries.

If you can pit sufficient cherries to make a cherry and apple pie, you won’t regret it.  However, these wild cherries are not as sweet as regular cherries, and may require more sugar in the recipe (according to your taste preference).  Pitted wild cherries make great accent fruits in fruit salads, green salads,  and chicken and tuna salads.  I’ve used them to make a sweet and tart sauce for fish, which I’m sure would work just as well with chicken & pork.  For a wicked dessert idea, try soaking them in rum or brandy for a while, then pour them over ice cream or even waffles with some whipped cream.

We recently made some venison kaftas for a wild foods feast.  Fortunately, black cherries were in season, so we made a black cherry sauce to accompany them.  It was a big hit.

If you are lucky enough to be able to harvest some black cherries, try making a sauce.  The recipe is fairly simple and easy to make. Depending on how much you reduce the sauce, you can make a useful black cherry syrup, which can be added to seltzer for a refreshing drink or taken straight as an very effective treatment for coughs and bronchitis.

See Lisa Caccamise’s recipe here

The post This Season’s Wild Edible Plant: Black Cherries appeared first on Suburban Foragers.

Choose pods that are young, firm and easily sliced.  If they feel at all tough or stringy, don’t use them.

Ingredients:

24 young milkweed pods

Cup precooked grain (Rice, millet or quinoa)

Small onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 small red pepper

1/2 cup wild greens (lambsquarters, purslane, mustard or stinging nettle)

small piece of ginger

teriyaki sauce

Salt & pepper

Coconut oil

Directions:

Turning the pod in your hand, look for the seam.  Split the pod carefully along the seem so that you expose the white seed cluster without pulling the pods apart.  Using a blunt knife, work the center out of the pod.  If it comes out whole, it will resemble a small white fish.  Put it on one side.

Put the pod cases into boiling salted water and cook for about 5 minutes.  Drain

Filling:

Slice the ginger and sauté in a pan containing two tbsp coconut oil

Chop the onion fine and add to pan

After a minute add finely chopped garlic cloves and chopped red pepper

Chop greens and add to mixture and cook for another minute

Stir in the grain and cook until hot

Remove ginger and flavor with about 1 tbsp teriyaki sauce

Add pepper to taste

Carefully fill each pod with stuffing and arrange on a platter

Garnish and serve

to watch our video, click here

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to read the recipe for stuffed milkweed pods, click here

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