One benefit of insomnia is I can take on a lot of projects. Here is my latest, a guide to wild edibles. It currently focuses on plants in the Houston area but it'll grow to encompass other...things.

It's still a bit rough on the edges but I'll tkae better pictures and such over time. Let me know what you think so far.

Thanks,

-Blast

Nice.

Suggestions:

Ethics – use your holes to plant seeds or shoots

Collecting tools – green bags
Tool belt
Walking staff to move stuff aside, and to “hook” high stuff into reach

Stuff obvious you use but not on list:


Camera
Notebook
Tape measure

Have fun with it!

I see you have cattails. Have you tried them yet?

Yes, the roots are undoubtedly edible as you pull them up. To someone. But I don't know many people who can keep them down without some hardcore work to turn them into flour. They are the only thing that has ever tasted better going up than going down, IME.

Yes, cattail roots "as is" are definitely in the "nothing left to eat" category. I've always thought they tasted like white paste gone bad. Um, not that I ever ate paste...

-Blast

Thanks for posting this info!!! I have been looking and learning more about plants for a while and now you've given a great addition to add to my printed material.

Thanks again.

Nice! The menu: Extremely fresh chicken, assorted bugs & grubs, and gathered greens; what's for dessert?
Note to self: Politely decline any invitations to progressive dinners in Blast's neighborhood.

Some of my favorites not on your site yet, maybe not n Houston area:

Purslane - raw. salad
Yerna buena - tea
Manzanita "berry" - cider
Miner's lettuce - raw, salad
Wild fennel - raw or cooked

You never fail to entertain (and enlighten) us.

Best digging tool I ever had was a M-16 bayonet. Not much good for anything else tho...

Cool Beans.

I can't wait to check it out.

Thanks!

Oh c'mon OBG...the bayonet is just dandy for bending the barrel of the m16/m4 if you use it for its intended purpose *rolls eyes*

-Bill Liptak

I'll second the digging but I've found a few other very handy uses for the bayonet, as well.

Not paste- more like elmer's glue.

Still, daylily flowers are good. Particularly if you get them as buds, and steam them.

Yeah, but in the civilian world some of that is frowned upon...

"... bending the barrel..."

That is why you need the H-Bar version. 'Course the plastic rifle now weighs as much as the M-1 Garand...

No direct knowledge of this, but I saw an ad a while back for a fighting knife that indicated that it was designed for use in using the 'hot coffee, no burned fingers technique'. This maneuver appeared to involve sticking the blade of this sharpened prybar into a hot place-wood fire, exhaust pipe, lava vent, whatever-heating the blade, and then quenching the blade in your coffee cup, thereby heating the coffee. Nasty thing to do to tempered steel, but the item did not appear to be good for much else. Ever use your bayonet so?
Blast, thanks for letting the rest of us benefit from your insomnia. Explains the breath-taking performance needed to obtain the PhD, but then, I would be afraid to go to sleep in Troy, anyway.

dweste,

Purslane is listed. Good tip on the Miner's Lettuce. I looked it up and around here it's know as dollar weed. It's running rampant in my neighbor's yards, so I'll get some good pictures of it. I've heard of yerna buena but I haven't found any around here.

I also added some of your suggested tools to my list. I can't believe I forgot a notebook and a ruler/tape measure.

-Blast

Nursemike,

You know Troy?! You poor fellow! I spent seven years living right on 9th St. when it had the highest murder rate in the Capital District.

-Blast

"...Ever use your bayonet so?..."

Nope. I like my coffee boiling hot, I doubt that a stubby little blade like an M-7 would get it that hot. I'm gonna need a bigger blade...

Blast, you are amazing!

While you attended the rigorous, demanding and world-renowned grad progam at RPI, I attended the Russell Sage College Evening Division grad program, which is none of those things, but does exist in Troy. Yes, I know it's a non-coed women's college. I was in drag. I don't like to think about it.

Neither do we....

I remember the Russel Sage ladies. A man wouldn't have to dress in drag to pass as a "Womyn" there...

What years? I was at RPI from 90-96 then spent another year living in Troy while working in Schenectady.

-Blast

Know what they call girls from Troy- Troilets
Living in Troy and commuting to Schenectady is analogous to living in purgatory and commuting to hell.

I started in 1982, finished in '88 cuz I couldn't drag my feet on the thesis any longer than that-lived and worked in the greater capitol district from 1949 to 1998-Ellis Hospital, Albany Med, Cobleskill, Amsterdam, Gloversville- typical nomadic ER nurse.

Great blog! I've been yearning to learn edible plants for some time now, and it just doesn't seem like there are any good web resources that did as well as you to provide the salient info in such a nice, compact way. Bravo!

P.s. Just be sure NOT to include making spruce bough tea...because, y'know, that would involve cutting live boughs off a tree. And we all know what happens when you suggest that...

Roots, never. But the inner tubers are delicious! My DD (who is very picky eater) called it "sweet lettuce". Cattails are awesome. How many other plants can give you tinder, flour, shelter, food, stuffing for a pillow, etc. all at once???