Asparagus and other wild edibles

They grow pretty much down to sea level here.
Freezers are getting packed with all sorts of berries, but we need to make room for lingon berries. We eat lingon to just about everything. Meat balls, black pudding, pancakes. Especially the thick oven tray pancake we talked about, with bacon in it.
Store bought lingon berry jam is useless. Hardly no berries in it. Mostly sugar and apple substitut.

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That’s uva ursi, bear berry? Around here it isn’t common, and little appreciated.

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Nope, but I can understand the mix up. Looks are similar, but the taste is totally different. The Swedish name is Mjölon. The base of the word means flour and they are kind of dry and tasteless like flour.

Lingon berry is completly different. Very fresh and acidic/sour. Needs a little sugar for jam, but gets tastier the longer it’s stored.
Does IKEA serve lingon berry jam to meatballs even abroad? I’m not sure. Far from the homemade real thing, but would give you an idea.

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This is next on my list of syrups to make.
The first picture is Mountain Ash with rowan berries. I made one batch of rowan berry syrup but straight from the tree. The berries were a bit bitter. I am freezing the berries for the second batch to see if they turn out better.
The second picture is high bush cranberries

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Yes mountain ash jam is incredibly bitter. Its used mainly medicinaly here, mainly to retain speech after a cold.

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Our mountain ash have no berries on them this year. I don’t know why. Poor birds.

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Kristijan,
It is bitter right off the tree. Yesterday I picked some and and put them in the freezer overnight. I made another batch of syrup this morning at it was way better. I read that one should wait until the first frost to pick. I couldn’t wait because it’s almost the end of our markets.

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More lingon berries. A very good year for lingon.
I picked 10L+ all by myself yesterday and was back home within an hour.



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I was looking at my last hayfield for the year, and came across a perfect clump of oyster mushrooms coming out of the ground. They only grow on wood, mostly balsam poplar, this was a logging road access, so I expect there’s balsam poplar buried just below. I was happy to see this, as the weather in June didn’t produce any. Our weather has suddenly turned wet and cool after being 30C or above.

I have been successful with culturing store bought oyster mushrooms lately, so I’m looking forward to trying these, which will be happy growing at lower temperatures. If they will grow on straw like the commercial varieties I’ll have endless mushrooms.

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Cape Gooseberry

Fruit is good rest of plant is poisonous

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Lambs quarter when dried can be as much as 50% plant protein. My son and I were feeding and watering some cattle for an older landlord
We fed his calves lambs quarter every day.
His grandson entered the biggest one in a 4H
Contest and got best in beef award. Every morning we would find him behind the barn eating lambs quarter
I blanched and froze about 20lbs that summer
Man was it good. It is resistant to Monsanto RoundUP.

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Lamb’s quarters is a relative of quinoa. I thought saponins made the leaves bitter. Not hard at all to grow, that’s for sure.

Pigweed (amaranth) is a great vegetable, can be picked up to the flowering stage.

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Got a big bag of red amaranth seeds from either Amazon or eBay can’t remember which
Last spring, knew I would have to move be for harvest time so I saved them for next spring.
Now on my own land I can grow what I want!
Still had a couple hundred pound of beardless wheat seed. After 5 days of rain we had a lot of mud here in camp so I brawd cast a bag on the muddy places just for a cover crop. Get rid of some of the mud. Will sow pasture mix next spring. Need to go to the grainery/ co-op, and see about some sorghum seed for next year

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I have a "field " of poplar sawmill slabs and logs in the woods for oysters to grow on. ANy poplar or willow gets dumped there to produce them.
We also have them on the occasional hickory tree, and they taste different.
Mostly on poplar though. Those you have are really nice.

Explain how to use them please.

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Hey, sorry for the delayed response. I treat pigweed or amaranth as a green. Up to the flowering stage the stalks aren’t very fibrous, so you can just cook them like collard greens. I like to wash the plants thoroughly (they have little hairs that tend to hold onto rain splashed dirt), and throw them in a covered bowl in the microwave with a bit of garlic, then season with salt, pepper and butter. They also go great in soups, red amaranth is used in Caribbean cooking where they call it “callaloo”. It can be used in east Indian cooking like they use pureed spinach.

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are you saying to cook the leaves and stalks or just the leaves.? Do you have to peel the stalks>?

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Both are food. Once the plants reach the flowering stage the main stalks become fibrous. The side shoots are still good then, they come out and flower later.

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So, just picked the walnuts. What a nice surprise! Beautiful!! And I was about to cut them. Bought for little money and now supernuts! It apeared that the one old tree sucks. 15 min of work to open the nut and no meat. Every year a few buckets. I was so frustrated last year I almost cut them all. Lets try tree by tree the chief said. Wow, what a weekend.

We planted around 20 trees some years ago. They start giving now.

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Millet? I didn’t know it was edible, in the states it is used and planted in shallow water for duck hunting, draws in blue and green wing teals nicely

Spent most of today reading this thread, probably my favorite I have seen on this forum

Here is one I have not seen mentioned that I really enjoy foraging for, these my dad and I picked last October and should be popping here reel soon along with the chanterelles that are starting to show, this are coral mushrooms. I have found them in many colors, from orange white brown red yellow and even a blue one once. Soft and tender, very nutty flavor found in second growth Doug fir and hemlock forest at about 1500-2500’ elevation with a solid forest floor of needles

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I found a coral mushroom once that filled 2 - 5 gallon buckets and weighed about 30 lbs.
Real nutty flavor, kept it in the garage and ate it over a 4 month period. Yum

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