Search: carpet weed

Newsletter January 03, 2017

by Green Deane

Dandelions always point away from their center. Photo by Green Deane

In Maine where I grew up the soil was what we called “poor.” That meant it was not only sandy but acidic. Some plants like acidic soil, some do not. Blueberries are an example of a plant that must have acidic soil. And indeed in New England one could find huge fields — literally hundreds of acres — of blueberries. Here in Florida, which is a limestone plate, blueberries are found in pockets of acidic soil such as near Oaks and Pines.

False Dandelions (Pyrrhopappus carolinianus) are also edible.

As has been mentioned before, Dandelions like acidic soil and cooler weather over hot. In northern climes they can grow to two feet tall and have huge blossoms. Collecting Dandelion greens there for supper is easy. We are now in the first week of January and locally Dandelions are doing their best which is rarely more than a few inches high. Instead of finding them everywhere one finds them in pockets of acidic soil. This is also why one foraging book does not fit all. Just in size alone Dandelions from Maine to Florida differ greatly. And the seasons are nearly opposite. To read more about Dandelions, go here.

Persimmons are persisting. Photo by Green Deane

Plants do not have brains and as far as we know they do not think. But they can have a strategy. Mushrooms that are toxic or deadly to humans do not want humans spreading their spores around. They want other creatures to do it. Berries might be a specific color to attract or repel specific creatures for the same reason. Ripe persimmons are sweet. They prefer animals that can taste sugar to spread their seeds around. Felines, which cannot taste sugar, are not preferred. Dog, bears and wolves et cetera are. And the persimmons pucker does not moderate to sweetness until the seeds are ready to germinate. Thus the tree does not want unripe seeds consumed either. This leads to when the tree fruits.

Commercial persimmons are bred to be ripe not astringent and the seeds tiny.

Locally persimmons are ripe about Columbus Day, mid-October. They are plump and ones on the ground are usually sweet. It is now January and I know of a persimmon tree that still has unripe fruit on it. This is not past-season desiccating fruit but still unripe fruit. One has to ask why? Is it a fluke, a genetic mutation of just this tree, or was there environmental reasons earlier in the year that signaled the tree to hold off on ripening? Did a rainy spring tell it to ripen late? (Rainy springs tell oaks to make lots of acorns.) Did daily temperatures affect it? Is this climate change? Hard to tell. All one can do is watch and see what happens during the year and what the tree(s) do next year. But it also shows plants don’t have to go “by the book.” To read more about persimmons go here.

Carpetweed can be found nearly anywhere.

Through hot and cold weather, wet and dry, one weed found in nearly all of the Americas is the low-growing Carpetweed. It’s native to the Tropical Americas but that has not stopped it from spreading far and wide. I know for certain that the cooked leaves are edible, a few raw ones can go in salads. Mollugo comes from the Latin Mollis for soft. Verticillata means arranged in whorls. The plant’s life cycle is synchronized with showers particularly in dry areas. It can germinate, grow and go to seed within a month. More rain gives it more time. The main problem is it’s scraggly and is an addition rather than the main ingredient. Carpetweed does not compete well with taller plants (thus it loves bald patches in lawns.) Medicinally it can increase one’s nitric oxide production. To read more about Carpetweed go here.

Herbal educator Deb Soule

Now’s the time to make sure you have a place at the sixth Florida Herbal Conference in February. Because you are a reader of this newsletter you can get $30 off your registration if you use the registration code GREENDEANE. To read more about the conference and to register go here. This will be my sixth year attending the festival teaching about wild edible plants. There will be many herbal teachers from around the state and nation. Featured keynote speakers are Deb Soule and Guido Mase. The conference’s numerous classes range from Clinical Herbalism to Garden Medicine. Recreational activities at the Lake Wales site include yoga, singing, drumming, and canoeing. Ms. Imani and Beautiful Chorus will provide music. A wide array of artisans and crafters will also have booths at the conference. Camping is included in registration, and indoor cabin lodging and weekend meal plans are also available. Proceeds of the conference will benefit United Plant Savers. Again, to read about and register go here.

Classes are held in sunshine and rain.

Foraging Classes: Except for hurricanes foraging classes usually are held as scheduled. We’re hungry when we are cold and wet so foraging classes are held when it is wet and when it is cold.

Saturday, January 7th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. We meet by the tennis courts.

Sunday, January 8th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, at Ganyard Road, Port Charlotte. 9 a.m.

Saturday January 14th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m. We meet north of the science center.

Sunday, January 15th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 32935-2335. 9 a.m. We meet at the dog park inside the park.

To learn more about the classes, go here.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. They make a good Christmas gift. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here. If that link is not working — there have been some site issues — you can use a donation link and email me your order and address.

Do you know this wild edible? You would if you read the Green Green forum.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

There are many reasons to forage. New flavors, textures, unmodified and chemical-free plants are high on the list. While there is more interest in foraging than there used to be it is not a ground swell. Most of the complaints have been about people who don’t understand mushrooms complaining about mushroom hunters. That said many officials and environmentalists see foraging as a problem that needs to be controlled. The following article presents a view of what should be done. One of my concerns is that it is written from the native plant point of view barely touching upon non-natives and ornamentals which we also forage. I wonder if legislation would protect native or just outlaw all foraging? What do you think? Is there substance to her argument or is it another Oh My God native plant spasm?

Forage In the Garden, Not in What’s Left of the Wild

by Lisa Novick, Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers & Native Plants. (This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post. Embeded links have been removed. However, you can read the original here. )

Wild foraging is one of the hottest new trends. People are eager to acquaint themselves with the soul of their local terroir. In Southern California, the delicious wild flavors of white sage, acorn, elderberry, walnut, toyon and other California native plants have been “discovered” by foragers and chefs, and people are heading into wild lands to gather these ingredients for cuisine with wildcrafted flavors and aromas. Problem is, our wild lands are already stressed from drought, invasive non-native plants and population pressure from Southern California’s approximately 23 million people. When we forage bark, berries, seeds and leaves from native plants in our wild lands, we decrease the plants’ ability to renew themselves. We also diminish habitat and deprive wildlife of the food needed for survival. Do foragers know that up to 90% of all leaf-eating insect species, such as caterpillars of butterflies, can eat only native plants? Do foragers think of their impact on wildlife when they remove acorns, elderberries and other native plant foods? And Southern California wild lands and wildlife are not alone in their distress.

It’s easy to think of wild plants as renewable resources, and they are – when the population is small and the wild lands are vast. But now, in this day and age, it’s different. If even a tiny percentage of our population goes into the wild, in search of native ingredients for our latest recipe, we will devastate what’s left of the natural environment. One of the cardinal rules of foraging is for each person to take no more than 10-20% of what s/he finds. But if even an infinitesimal percentage of the U.S.’s 320 million people takes “only” 10-20%, it will be carnage.

What could we do instead? We could do what people have done for thousands of years and what some are already doing: Grow native plants at home or in community gardens. We could also farm native plants. Agriculture started with the realization that, for a given population, foraging was inadequate and unsustainable. Now, in a world of more than 7 billion people and vastly diminished wild lands, that realization applies more than ever.

We should renew our urban and suburban spaces with native plants and forage in our gardens, not in what’s left of the wild. We should landscape with the native plants we crave, creating more habitat, supporting biodiversity and decreasing our landscape water use. Native gardens provide sustenance to bees, caterpillars, butterflies, birds, lizards and people, among others. In contrast to foraging, native gardens are a net gain for Life.

In our agricultural areas, we should convert some of the non-native monocultures to various native species that yield the desired seasonal ingredients and support healthy, functioning food webs and ecosystems. In Southern California, for example, there could be orchards of elderberry, toyon and Catalina cherry interspersed with white sage, buckwheat and manzanita. In fact, every part of the United States could celebrate its authentic natural character by cultivating native plants for their culinary ingredients. Chefs and others desiring native ingredients would be supporting the creation of some of the greenest jobs imaginable, and we would be regreening our local environment with native plants that support biodiversity.

In my backyard garden, when my daughters were young, they foraged from our ridiculously fecund ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum ‘Dana Point’), golden currant (Ribes aureum var. gracillimum), and western elderberry (Sambucus mexicana). Before we left for a hike in the local mountains, we picked a few elderberry and mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana) leaves and put them in our pockets, just in case we ran into poison oak. People across the United States could similarly transform their urban and suburban landscapes to supply the native ingredients they desire. Many native plants are suitable for containers – a vast yard is not necessary. Visit a local nursery to purchase the native plants and, if the nursery does not carry them, ask that they begin to keep them in stock.

Southern California is a biodiversity hotspot – one third of its native plants are found nowhere else in the world – and foraging in our wild lands for native plants further devastates these already shrinking populations of plants that have managed to survive the colonial incursions of the last 500 years. In Southern California and the rest of the country, we have predominantly landscaped with non-native plants that deprive the vast majority of our insect and animal species of the food and shelter they need for survival. Then, after erasing native habitat in the places we live, we go into our remnant wild lands and forage native plants. This is not just ironic – it’s heart-breaking.

In a world that is in the initial throes of a sixth mass extinction, this one caused by people erasing native habitat and negatively impacting the biosphere in all sorts of other ways, foraging native plants is not just irresponsible: it is tantamount to ecocide and comparable to eating shark fin soup or hunting elephants, whales and condors.

The foraging movement is an understandable outcome of people yearning to reconnect with the natural world, but we must respect our remaining wild lands. They are precious. We must look beyond our desires of the moment and to the world we are leaving for future generations. It’s great that wildcrafted cuisine has inspired more people to love their local natural environment, but instead of foraging, we must bring this cornucopia of “new” aromas, flavors and ingredients into our lives through farming and landscaping. Let’s become even more intimate with the nature of where we live by cultivating the wild ingredients we desire. Let’s respond to the natural world in a way that is not reminiscent of the rapaciousness of the past. Let’s honor and enjoy the nature of place through cuisine that not only celebrates our terroir, but also celebrates the human ability to change and create a better world.

This is Newsletter 239.

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

{ 7 comments }

Newsletter 4 October 2016

by Green Deane

Honey is a wild forageable but the bees don’t always agree. Photo by Green Deane

Foraging class Sunday in southwest Florida was quite productive. We had the opportunity to sample Ground Cherries, Jambul Fruit, and Cereus fruit. Other nibbles included Hairy Cowpea blossoms, sea purslane, common purslane, arils, and Blue Porterweed blossoms. We even managed to see a bees’ hive but we left the honey alone. This week the foraging class goes about 120 east to West Palm Beach.

Low-growing Carpetweed

One of the more common edible weeds underfoot in North America is Carpetweed, Mollugo verticillata. Scraggly if not scrawny the wispy plant does have the saving grace that it is all edible, raw or cooked and it requires very little cooking. Add it last. There are several non-edible species that can resemble it so there are some of key points to remember. First, it does not have any white sap, it grows in a circular mat, and the blossoms have five white sepals but usually only three stamens, sometimes four or five but usually three, which is a bit odd for a five- sepal plant. Look for it in dry, sandy locations including waste ground. For all of its wide-spread presence in North America it is actually native to the tropical Americas. You can read about Carpetweed here.

Forager Dick Deuerling

Many years ago I would go foraging with the legedary Dick Deurling and Dr. Jose Gotts. Dr. Gotts, a professor at the University of Central Florida, was a character. Short, bald and portly he often went on a forage wearing only white shorts and dark horn-rimmed glasses. And nearly every time he would eat something controversial. I once saw him taste a Lubber, which is a large, toxic grasshopper. That would be about the time when Dick would announce to the group not to do what Jose had just done because Gotts grew up in war-torn Algeria and had an immune system primed differently than the rest of us. It was an interesting warning. Should you, for example eat fruit that has fallen on the ground? I do so the question perhaps is- – is this a harmful practice? The answer is a clear maybe yes maybe no.

Watermelon on a hard surface picks up the most bacteria.

Surprisingly there has been research on how much bacteria dropped food can pick up. It depends on what is dropped and where it lands. For example watermelon dropped on a tiled floor picks up a huge amount of bacteria almost instantly whereas a dry gummy bear on carpet very little. The harder the surface not only the more bacteria but the longer the bacteria can live which seems counter intuitive. Essentially it is the type of surface the food lands on that is important then how much bacteria is on that surface and lastly what kind of bacteria.

E.coli causes most of the worst food poisonings.

Excluding wild food, Americans get up to 800,000 cases of food poisoning a day… yes a day. And the rate of food poisoning from commercially grown food has doubled since 2000. About a third of it is from commercial fruits and vegetables and usually that’s contaminated with the bacteria E. coli, sometimes salmonellosis, rarely a Cyclospora parasite. Most wild plants and fruit don’t have that those pathogens. Another problem with commercial fruits and vegetable — compared to wild food — is that they can be handled by several customers and store personnel before you pick it up. Thus generally said wild food that is only touched by you is safer and usually the soil not contaminated. More so washing in plain water can also get rid of 98% of bacterial on such food though truth be told I can’t remember the last time I washed any wild food before consuming it. Not a worry high on my list.

Avoid cat bathrooms, and dogs, too.

If there is a high count of bacteria on a wild fruit or vegetable it will usually be on a bruised or rotting spot. I make jokes in classes about plants being watered by poodles but that’s not really a concern. Urine is fairly sterile and the rain washes off nearly everything. Where one does need to exercise some caution is where dogs (and especially cats) go to the bathroom. Their scat, particularly cats, can foster parasites in the soil. It might be that if you have pets your own back yard is the most hostile soil near you. Indeed most parasites in children come from pet-contaminated soil in their own yard, and usually from cat scat.

Bumpy fruit, bumpy surface, down they go.

So what am I usually eating off the ground — usually dry sandy ground– or sidewalks? Persimmons, Jambul fruit, sea grapes come to mind and mulberries. I also eat purslane — mentioned earlier — where I find it not bothering to wash it unless it is a dusty location. And also note most research and commentary on food bacteria was written about commercially contaminated food and before we had a greater interest in our gut biome. It just might be that eating wild food adds diversity to our gut bacteria and increases our resillience.

Mom’s favorite septic snack, Violets.

We can detect at least two themes regarding food and bacteria: Commercial food is usually contaminated with stuff from human waste, so food grown over the septic drain field might be questionable. And some soil can be contaminated by cat or dog waste, usually your own back yard. I think it wise not to forage around a dog park and don’t let your dog or cat use your garden for a bathroom. That said I grew up in a house with a septic drain. Wild violets grew in that ditch profusely and my mother ate them raw all the time. She almost made it to 90 and would have made a century if she hadn’t smoked.

And while we should have some concerns about the wholesomeness of wild food I think a greater concern than bacteria is whether the ground or water has been polluted by non-bacterial means. How to assess for environmental contamination will be covered in a separate article.

Classes are held rain or shine.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Sunday, October 9th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. This class is cancelled because of Hurricane Matthew. While the weather might be good Sunday clean up, traffic and whether the park will be open are issues. The class has been rescheduled for October 23rd. Same time.

Sunday, October 16th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 32246. 9 a.m.

Sunday, October 23rd, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the classes go here.

Do you know this edible? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

The Nine-DVD set includes 135 videos.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

This is Newsletter 227.

If you would like to donate to Eat The Weeds please click here.

{ 7 comments }

Newsletter 29 December 2015

by Green Deane

My first sighting of Goosegrass of the season, and the right species, too. Oddly they are related to the coffee tree. To read more about them go here. Photo by Green Deane

NEW SMYRNA BEACH: Christmas Day found me on the coast just south of Daytona Beach. It’s an area I have been visiting since the ’80’s when I regularly rented a beach house there. Living on the beach for several days at a time at different times of the year let’s you learn what wild edibles are there and where to find them. My holiday present to myself was a visit to this old stomping grounds.

Finnding Christmasberries on Christmas is good foraging. Photo by Green Deane

What better find for the Yule Tide season than Christmasberry. While there are many “Christmasberries” this one is in the Goji group. An Asian Goji is much touted for its healthy fruit. Our local “Goji” is shrub that favors brackish water areas such as Florida’s inland coastal waterway. The plant itself does not resemble most Nightshades but the blossoms do. These berries were found at Turtle Mound, which is an ancient trash heap and tourist trap. I usually find Christmasberries later in the spring but these shrubs were on the west side of the mound where they get full afternoon sun in a protected environment. They were also at water’s edge. To read more about the Christmasberry go here.

Natal Plums are native to Africa. Photo by Green Deane

Another tasty find was Natal Plums. In fact, it was at the beach house some 30 years ago where I first saw Natal Plums. They were part of the houses’ landscaping and a good choice. The two-story house was right on the dunes (and since removed by the park service after the 50-year lease-back contract expired.) Natal Plums are not really plums but resemble them somewhat. The ripe fruit is sweet and slightly tart with a sticky latex. There are commercial varieties. Once established they are wind, salt and drought tolerant. They also have double sets of thorns so they also make a protective hedge. I’ve seen them in southern climates from Daytona Beach to San Diego. You can read more about them here.

Holly berries are toxic but the leaves make a caffeinated tea. Photo by Green Deane

Unlike the red fruit above the berries to the right are toxic. They will make you sick so we do not eat them. However, we can make the leaves into a caffeinated tea. No species in North America has more caffeine than Ilex vomitoria, aka Yaupon Holly. The tea also contains a good serving of anti-oxidants as well. In fact one company in Daytona Beach — Yaupon Asi Tea — sells the tea and is in competition with Yerba Marte, but at a much lower price. It’s a small company that will no doubt get larger. Earlier this year its brand could be found in 80 specialty grocery stores including Whole Foods, Lucky’s Market and Earth Fare stores. If you collect your own leaves roasting them in a slow oven or steaming preserves the most caffeine. To read more about the Yaupon Holly go here.

Bananas fruit their second year. Photo by Green Deane

The presence of an ocean moderates temperatures so bananas can live to two years old and fruit. You can eat the purple blossom, the unripe and ripe fruit, and the inner pith of the stalk. They way you harvest bananas is to keep an eye on them. When one begins to turn from green to yellow you cut the entire branch off (called a hand) and take it inside the house. I used to hang them from the ceiling by a plant hanger. They will ripen slowly inside from one end to the other. That’s way you protect them from rotting and insects and you get most of the bananas for yourself. Whether the world will run out of bananas is difficult to tell. They are mostly all clones and are being attacked by a similar “Panama” fusarium disease as in the 1950’s. The variety of banana we eat today — Cavendish — is different and less tasty than the commercial one when I was a kid, which was the Gros Michel aka the “Big Mike.” Now a new fusarium disease threatens to wipe out the “Cavendish.” To read more about bananas click here.

Nicker Bean pods and seeds are NOT edible but they are interesting. Photo by Green Deane

These strange seed pods are not edible. In fact nothing about the nicker bean is edible. But it does have some medicinal qualities. I’ve included it because not only does it grow in the brackish water (near Turtle Mound) but when people see it they want to know what it is thus it is the subject of a lot of email. If I remember correctly there are two different species and they are native to Florida. The seed pods and gray seeds are used in flower arrangements. A quinine- like drug is derived from the plant. Like the Smilax it is also classified as a “climbing shrub.” I have struggled for years to exactly understand what a “climbing shrub” is. It looks more like a vine but is not a vine or more specifically a liana which is a long woody vine. The difference between a shrub and a tree is height and number of main trunks (tree one, shrubs many.) So it is woody, and has many trunks… that’s still doesn’t help much. To read more about the Nicker bean go here.

Ground Cherries fruit twice a year locally. Photo by Green Deane

Locally Ground Cherries fruit at least twice a year, and the seasons can be long or short depending on the weather. As you can see this one is in blossom on Christmas Day. The blossoms can be lemon yellow or lemon yellow with a ruby throat or just the hint of a ruby throat. They will develop into a husk with a green fruit inside. The fruit eventually turns yellow then golden and sweet. They can be eaten out of hand or made into pies and jellies and the like. But you should always try one first and wait about a minute to tell if there is any latent bitterness. A little is okay. A lot means try cooking them first. If still bitter we don’t eat them. To read more about the Ground Cherries go here.

Sea Purslane is tasty raw or cooked. Photo by Green Deane

A visit to the beach would not be complete without one of the prime dune builders, Sea Purslane. Besides edible raw it can be boiled, broiled and fried. I like young and tender branches grilled for a few minutes. Put them on when everything else is done. Five minutes later they’ll taste great. The way they build dunes is by slowing down the wind. When the plant slows the wind the wind drops the sand it’s carrying. That builds and the plant just grows up with the dune. While edible all year I think they are best in the cooler months. To read more about Sea Purslane click here.

Seablite, my favorite coastal plant. Photo by Green Deane

This wispy plant on the left is one of my favorites. If I could nominate any wild plant to become a commercial crop this would be it: Sea Blite. While one might not think so it is in the Goosefoot family and related to Lambs Quarters. It’s seasonal and will be growing for the next three or four months. Very mild in flavor, slightly salty, wonderful texture, I eat a lot of it through the season. Again, like most of the plants above, it tolerates brackish water and is usually found along intercostal water ways. It’s not a plant usually found on the beach. Edible raw or cooked, I like to stuff a fish with it then roasting the fish. You can read more about Sea Blite here.

Coral Bean blossoms are hard to miss. Photo buy Green Deane

Coral Bean blossoms are hard to miss. Photo by Green Deane

One of the temporarily more colorful shrubs of the coastal region is the Coral Bean. For a few months it sports these long red blossoms to attract butterflies and humming birds. The blossoms themselves are edible raw or cooked but are usually cooked. Interestingly the beans these blossoms make are toxic so we do not eat the beans, only the blossom. The distinctive young leaves are also edible cooked but the leaves are not a wild food one seeks out a second time. When you cook the blossoms — usually by boiling — they turn green. The boiled blossoms are traditionally mixed with scrambled eggs. I don’t know why but that is comfort food down through Central America. To read more about the Coral Berry aka Cherokee Bean, go here.

Gracilaria is one of the tastier and attractive seaweeds. Photo by Green Deane

No report from the beach would be complete without a mentioning of seaweed. If the water is not polluted nearly all seaweed is edible. There are a couple in North American waters, however, that are not. One in northern waters has sulfuric acid and a blue-green one in southern waters is linked to the disease Ciguatera. The main problem with all the seaweeds that are edible is that they don’t taste that good. Some, like sea lettuce, taste best fresh and raw. Others, like Sargassum, are much better dried. Seaweed did not evolve with mammal palates in mind so taste was low on the plant’s list of important things. Seaweeds that are anchored should be harvested when anchored. If they are floating around they are probably degrading. However some seaweed is free-floating and they should be harvested while free floating, not on the shore, or at least not on the shore for long. I think I have five seaweeds on my main site. You can read about one of them here.

Upcoming foraging classes:

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Sunday, January 3rd,Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, January 10th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, January 17th, 2016, Sunday, Nov. 15, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 24th, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 31st, Jervey Gantt Recreation Complex, 2390 SE 36th Ave., Ocala, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 7th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, Feb. 14, Mead Garden,1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 6th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, 9 a.m.

Sunday, March 13th, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 19, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga, 9 a.m.

Saturday, March 26th, Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 3rd, John Chestnut County Park: 2200 East Lake Road, Palm Harbor, FL, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 10th, Wekiva State Park, 1800 Wekiwa Circle, Apopka, Florida 32712. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 17th, Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 24th, Wickham Park: 2500 Parkway Drive, Melbourne, FL 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here.

All of Green Deane’s videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for the newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in lightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each. Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual videos can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

Do you know what this plant is? You would if you read the Green Deane Forum.

Want to identify a plant? Perhaps you’re looking for a foraging reference? You might have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we — including Green Deane and others from around the world — chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about, such as the one to the left. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: So Much Free Food! Berries! What Kind Of Shrub Is This? Oxalis Corymbosa. Water Hyssop Recipes. Where To Get LUS Groundnut Strain? Is This Lambs Quarters? Small Herb, Solanum americanum, Winter Fruits in Sanibel, Are These Plants Related to Canavalia maritima? Lawn Weed, Wild Cucumber, Melothria Pendula, Edibility of Flowers From Landscape Hibiscus, Primitive Survival Class, Which Agave? Gallium or Carpetweed? and Dichotomous Key: You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

This is newsletter 189, and Happy New Year!

To donate to the Green Deane Newsletter or website click here.

{ 1 comment }

Newsletter 22 December 2015

by Green Deane

Young Ringless Honey Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

The foraging is not done for the season. In fact we forage year round. There was plenty to find in West Palm Beach this past weekend. We started, unusually, with mushrooms. I usually don’t discuss mushrooms because I am not qualified to talk about most of them. But these were Ringless Honey Mushrooms, considered by some among the easiest to identify in North America.

Another edible fungi seen this season are Deer Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

Another edible fungi seen this season were Deer Mushrooms. Photo by Green Deane

While Honeys can come up any time of year they favor late fall and early winter though their “flushing” can vary. Some years I see them as early as October or as late as January. This year they seemed to come up in mid-November then a month later. Opinions on their edibility range from “leave them alone” to “choice.” The literature has reports of some people getting ill after eating them, although I have never met anyone with that problem. They reportedly can cause digestive upset, short in duration for some, long in duration for others. This should not be surprising because the same thing happens with wild edible plants and cultivated ones. I know a lot of people who, for example, cannot eat mangos. There are also various ways to prepare Honeys. Some eat only the caps. Some parboil the caps first then cook them in other ways. Others insist they just need to be cooked longer than other mushrooms. As you can see there is a range, as there is with common food. Even if one doesn’t eat wild mushrooms (or wild plants!) it is still good to know what wild plans are. You can read about Ringless Honey Mushrooms here.

Tamarinds are used for flavoring. Photo by Green Deane

One of the reasons why I like to hold classes from North Carolina to South Florida is I get to see edibles ranging from a temperate forest to tropical. In West Palm Beach there is a good mix. We did see a Cashew tree — now out of fruiting season— as were the Mangos and the Jambuls. There were a few cashew shells around but you have to be careful as the shells are extremely caustic. Mahogany trees are interesting to look at but their “nut” is not edible. Tamarinds, however, do have edible pods. There are two at the class location, planted side by side. I’m not sure why. Pollination might be an issue, or they like company. They are wildly used as flavoring particularly in Asian sphere of influence. I didn’t notice them until one year I was there at the right time when they were fruiting. The tamarinds are also not far from what I call the Child-Proof tree, the Silk Floss. It is huge can very well armed with thorns and tiny edible parts one can never reach.

The Mahoe manages to have two different colored blossoms. Photo by Green Deane

The Seagrape tree was out of season but a relative, the Pigeon Plum, aka Dove Plum, did have some fruit to try. It’s a very strange foragable. While the dark-purple ripe fruit can be eaten off the tree it is astringent. But if it is dried and then rehydrated the fruit becomes delicious. So I usually pick dry ones off the ground and also what dry ones I can find on the tree then soak them in a little water. They are well worth the effort becoming non-astringent and sweet. Another odd tree we sampled was the Mahoe, this time a variegated one. Flowers, young leaves, and inner bark are all edible. What is odd about the tree is that its blossom are yellow in the morning. If they are not pollinated by the afternoon they will turn red to attract a different insect to do the job. The texture of the blossom also changes through the day, the petals, delicate in the morning become tough and papery by late afternoon. You can read about it here.

Sea Almonds are not related to real almonds. Photo by Green Deane

Sea Almonds are not related to real almonds but are tasty. Photo by Green Deane

One of my favorite south Florida trees is the Tropical Almond, also called the Sea Almond. It’s not related to the almond at all but the weathering fruit looks like a large unshelled almond hence the name. If you hit the fraying dry pod between two rocks — very hard to find in Florida — or on edge with a hammer you will hear a distinct sharp “crack.” You can then open the pod to find a cylindrical “nut” inside that is quite tasty. It’s not really a nut but it looks, breaks, chews, and tastes like one. You don’t have to roast them, raw is fine. However, I might collect some next time I am teaching there — mid-January I think — and I will try shelling and roasting some, just for the taste of it. You can read more about the Tropical Almond here.

Pursane’s nutrition is well documented. Photo by Green Deane

Among the dozens of edible species we saw in West Palm Beach were Juniper, Yellow Pond Lillies, Purslane, Blue Porter Weed, Yaupon Holly, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, Hairy Bittercress, Cocoplums, Simpson Stopper, two species of Amaranth, Pandanus Grass, Dollar Weed, Water Hyssop, Spanish Needles, Oxalis, Perennial Peanut, Cattails, Hairy Cowpea, Traveler Palms, medicinal Sida, Pellitory aka Cucumber Weed, Banyans and their relative Rubber Trees.

The beginning of the Fifth Annual Urban Crawl.

The annual Urban Crawl is a free event.

The Fifth Annual Urban Crawl was fun. We started at Panera’s in downtown Winter Park a little after 10 a.m., negotiated AMTRAK and then passing showers of the cold front. (One forages regardless of the weather because in real life if one is hungry one forages regardless of the weather.) The educational element of this particular Urban Crawl is the mixture of weeds, natives and edible ornamentals. Among the more odd things we saw was a limequat, which was a self-created hybrid and I think the only citrus with striped fruit. We did get to taste some out-of-season Podocarpus fruit, blue and sweet. At the east end of Morse Avenue there was a flowering Natal Plum. We managed to find one almost ripe fruit on it. And a short distance away an attractive specimen of a Weeping Holly loaded with caffeine and anti-oxidants. Our three-hour stroll took us along Lake Virginia near Rollins College where we found an abundance of Wild Cucumbers still setting. They are a nice, crunchy find. The cold weather will knock them out until April or so. There was also a lot of wild mint, water hyssop, and The annual crawl is free to anyone who shows up.

Foraging classes held rain or shine except for hurricanes.

Upcoming Foraging Classes:

Sunday, Jan. 3rd,Bayshore Live Oak Park, 2200 East Lake Road, Port Charlotte, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 10th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL. 9 a.m.

Sunday, Jan. 17th, 2016, Sunday, Nov. 15, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL, 9 a.m.