Wild Food Foragers vs Ecologists

[urbpan]

Over the past month I've become slowly aware of a separation between two communities that should be closely aligned. It's similar to the division between cat-lovers and ecologists, but with its own distinctions

Comments

[asakiyume]

I don't like invasive plants that become monocultures (like phragmites and purple loosestrife, etc.), but I do find myself wondering, do they really become monocultures

[urbpan]

I agree completely. On some level, the fight against Oriental bittersweet (for example) is already lost. But I feel like: if we have stewardship of a given parcel of land, we have a responsibility to take care of it, and taking care of it means removing invasives. That's relatively easy to do in a back yard (we have successfully removed all the ailanthus and barberry, and continually and possibly perpetually are removing the garlic mustard, knotweed, swallow-wort, and o bittersweet) but much more difficult and labor intensive on a larger scale

[harebell]

Excellent post, thank you.

[urbpan]

Thanks for reading it all! Kind of a wall of text, I know.

Invasive Permaculture

[gigglingwizard]

I'll go ahead and tie another knot in this tangled issue. As a farmer, I like any crop that I don't have to plant or take care of. Perennials are good. Wild plants are better. Wild plants that actually taste good and can be gathered greedily without fear of wiping them out, that will be back in abundance the following year, are best of all. As such, invasives are ideal permaculture crops

[jilder]

This is a very sensible discussion that needs to be had. We have many of the same issues over here with invasives, and there are increasing calls to eat the invaders - in our case mostly things like rabbit, camel and pigs. There's always been a bit of tension between people who want a biological solution to those problems and the people who want to eat them. No one wants to eat diseased meat, after all, but they breed too fast to be able to effectively control through hunting.

[kryptyd]

This is a very interesting post. I always thought that anyone who cared hated all invasives and wanted to get rid of them. I've also never heard knotweed being described as useful for anything other than planting it under disputed roads (like the one they put through the Hill of Tara). Any time I ever heard crusties discussing this tactic I tried to dissuade them, because we certainly don't need anyone purposefully spreading knotweed around Ireland or the UK (which are the two places I've heard road protesters discussing this tactic in).

[gigglingwizard]

Young knotweed has a taste and crunch like sour apples. As I'm allergic to raw apples (and raw pears, plums, cherries, peaches, etc.), I'm delighted to have a bit of knotweed growing near my house. It also makes a nice privacy screen, at least in the summer.

[asakiyume]

fascinating! The only time I tried cooking it, it became too mushy. Maybe, though, I should try making a pie out of it? (Do you have any recipes you particularly like that you could share?)

Also, when you say young shoots, how big is too big, in your estimation?

[gigglingwizard]

I've never tried cooking it. Half the appeal of it for me is that it's something sweet and crunchy that I can eat fresh.

I've been cutting stalks that are 2-4 feet high and eating the bottom foot or so. They are very fibrous, so I just chew them up to get the juice and a little bit of pulp out, then spit out the fibers. I usually peel off the outside first, or I split it open and scrape the inside off with my teeth.