I've been trying to add more edible plants to my yard's landscaping and stumbled across what seems to be a great resource:
www.ediblelandscaping.com

You can order a free catalog from their website filled with all sorts of tempting fruits, nuts, berries and assorted other pretty yet edible plants. Note: I have not ordered anything from them and I don't know if I will. With the information in their catalog I think I can find similar plants in local nurseries. The website and catalog are definately a good resource though, especially since they are free.

-Blast

Given the devastating drought, I would find some good ethnobotony books devoted to the indian and tejano uses of native and heirloom cultivated plants. One of the most complete, and easilly most nutritious food sources on earth are acorns. And here people sweep 'the mess' from the streets. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

In the Great Plains area (more specifically, tall grass prairie) the lowly Sunflower reigned supreme as a cultivated food source for native tribes. It was made into bread, among other things.

I'm on my second crop this year, and the yield of seeds is unbelieveable.

Excellent idea. I, for one, have never really thought about this since there is so much edible stuff already growing around here. I am going to bring this subject up to friends and family. Thanks for posting it and the link, Blast. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I planted a relative of the sunflower, the Jerusalem artichoke, (Helianthus tuberosus L.), also known as sunchoke. Rather than edible seeds you get an edible tuber. The Wife loves the flowers!

I'm not sure how good they taste but they are native to much of the USA.

Lee, you will love the artichokes.

You can do anything to them that you can do to a potato. I highly reccommend steamed or especially grilled, with a splash of olive oil on them.

One note: as your plot ages, the roots get larger. In 2 or 3 years, they can be nearly as big as yams. Your first crops will be tiny little roots and seem like hardly worth the bother to clean, but they are. Tasty little devils.

Second note: Don't eat too many at one setting until your body adjusts. Beano won't help.

Third note: The 'chokes will take over if you don't ruthlessly dig them back to their plot.

Last note: Dry 'choke root, and grind into flour. Mix with parched and ground yellow corn. soak in water with some wood ashes (adds vitamin A, some lime will work, too) bake like bannock bread, flat or balls (balls boiled with jerked meat and some salt, yum)

The dried stems are good tinder, they can be retted to make fair cordage, and the leaves are good to drive off bugs and mites in containers.

Thanks for the link!

Fallshirmjager, thanks for all the 'choke tips!, I'm looking forward to trying them soon.

While doing more research on edible landscape plants I stumbled upon another website:
Plants for the Future

The neat thing about this site is you can type in the name of a plant (common or latin) and it will tell you if it can be used for food, dyes, tea, cordage, etc! Using it I've discovered I already have a landscape filled with edible plants.

-Blast

As I go about my daily business, I find myself muttering outloud, "Hmmm, I wonder if that (berry, bush, leaf, root, twig, bug, gopher) is edible?" Wonder why folks look at me funny?