Brooklyn Feed

During my morel hunting last Saturday, I noticed other wild edibles in the woods. There was winter cress, garlic chives (as a kid, we called this onion grass), watercress, and two highly invasive plants – garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed.

Being the somewhat nature-deprived city gal that I am, I took the opportunity of gathering some wild edibles while I was in the woods. I gathered all of the above except the Japanese knotweed. Lindsay took ownership of the garlic chives, and delighted in pulling them up to get the bulbs. We made scrambled eggs with chives that were delicious. The eggs, of course, were from our backyard chickens.

The garlic mustard looked hopelessly wilted by the time I got home, so I put it in a big bowl of cold water hoping to revive it. It seems as though nothing can kill garlic mustard, and it perked up in no time. I made a delicious pesto sauce, using 50% basil leaves and 50% garlic mustard leaves and buds. Now is the time to pick garlic mustard to eat, because after the flowers bloom, the plant becomes too bitter.

In searching online for garlic mustard recipes, I learned more about the plant itself. It is a highly invasive plant that European settlers brought to plant in their kitchen gardens. It is a prolific producer of seeds and will blanket an area in a very short time, choking out all other native plants, including jack-in-the-pulpit, solomon-seal MOREL MUSHROOMS, and others. Wild animals don’t like to eat it, so it grows completely unchecked. And if that weren’t bad enough, the roots send out a chemical compound that makes the soil inhospitable to other plants. A very primitive form of chemical warfare.

There are many groups that host garlic mustard pulls. The amount of bags filled with the weed is astonishing. Unlike other weeds, you can’t pull this one up and just leave it on the ground. The flowers will have enough energy to produce seeds even after the plant has been uprooted. You have to pull it up by it’s roots and bag it.

Here’s a video that talks about the problems with garlic mustard. It helps you identify it and learn how to get rid of it. There’s even an annual Garlic Mustard Challenge, in which you help them log how many bags of garlic mustard have been pulled. Take a peek here.

Garlic Mustard Identification and Control from Barbara Lucas on Vimeo.

Happy first day of spring everyone! We’ve got freezing rain as a way of keeping it real. Here’s a link to some great gardening events around NYC. A couple took place this past weekend, but most of them are still to come.

I’m itching to start some seeds that my mother-in-law gave me this weekend. She took a seed collecting class at Project Native (amazing native plant nursery in the Berkshires) and collected loads of native species. Many of the plants are specific to that area, so do well in moist, rich soil. There were a that I thought might do well in my poor, dry, neutral to alkaline soil.

I chose little blue stem grass (which favors poor, dry soil – wahoo!),
foxglove beard tongue,
ironweed,
and steeple bush.

I also have some veggie seeds coming my way from Territorial Seed Co., so I should have some fun starting all these guys.

This is an interesting video discussing the importance of native plants and the problem with exotic plants becoming invasive. It was made by Texas Parks and Wildlife, so while a lot of the plants are specific to that area, the overall information translates to any area.

Palos Verdes Nature Preserve: Goats grazing on invasive weeds in the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve – latimes.com.

I’ve read about having goats graze in California as a way to reduce brush fires, but this article is about having them chomp down invasive plants as part of a native plant restoration project.

When you are interested in foraging, you really have to pay attention to the seasons. If you read about ramps in the winter, you are going to have to wait until spring to find them. Shopping at grocery stores seems to have made us forget that certain things grow at certain times of year. At least locally, that is. I had read about making acorn flour a while ago, but it wasn’t acorn season. I forgot all about it until I saw Stephanie mention it in her blog. I was going up to the Berkshires for the weekend and it was the right time of year for acorns.

We went on a hike and I brought a backpack along to gather nuts. I had no idea how many I would need, so I summoned my inner squirrel and kept gathering and filling my bag. When we got home, I weighed the nuts I had found and had 8lbs. After pulling off the tops and discarding the ones that had worm holes in them I had 6lbs. I read in a couple of places that you place the acorns in water and the ones that float aren’t viable. I tried that and almost all of mine floated. I decided to check inside and see what they looked like. Some were bad, but most were good, so I decided to skip that theory.

Now comes the gross part…grubs! Many of the acorns had grubs. The fat, white, wiggly things totally grossed me out, so I decided to bake the acorns at 170 degrees F to kill them. A dead grub is still gross, but a wiggling one is much worse.

After discarding the acorns that were discolored or had grubs in them I think I was down to about 2-3 lbs. Acorns are full of tannins, so you have to soak them for several days to remove the bitterness. I tried soaking them when they were chopped, but thought that the water wasn’t getting to the inside of the acorn meat. I ran them through a meat grinder to chop them smaller.

Directions for how to make acorn flour:

• Gather a ridiculous amount of acorns
• Discard any that have obvious problems (squirrel bites or worm holes)
• Bake acorns at 170F for 1 hour to kill grubs
• Shell acorns tossing out any that are discolored or have grubs. It is pretty obvious which ones are good and which ones aren’t
• Grind acorns in a food processor, or a meat grinder
• Wrap in several layers of cheesecloth and soak in water. You will need to do this for several days, until the meat isn’t bitter.
• Lay the acorn flour on a pan and either dry in the sun, or in the oven on the lowest setting. Make sure it’s completely dry or it will mold.

I will post some recipes within the next few days.

The right plants attract birds without feeders | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram.

This is a nice article that describes several native plants that are particularly good to plant in your yard to attract wildlife.

Plano man converts yard to wild prairie of native plants | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Home and Gardening | Dallas Morning News.

This article is about a Texas man who, over two years, turns his yard from the typical St. Augustine grass lawn, to a wildlife oasis using native plants. He chronicles the transformation on his blog, which you can read here. One thing I like about the article is how the neighbors came to appreciate his work, even though initially they worried it “didn’t fit with the neighborhood.”

I can’t stress enough how important it is to plant species native to your area. They are particularly adapted to your climate, which means they don’t need supplemental watering or fertilizing. But even more importantly is how crucial they are to the survival of wildlife. Whenever we build new buildings, we lose more native plants. In their place, we usually plant non-native plants and grassy lawns. The wildlife that used to live there now has nothing to eat, because insects and other critters are often only able to eat one type of plant. Who cares about a bunch of bugs you say? Well the birds do. If the creepy crawlies die out, the birds don’t have anything to eat and they move on. Or they die out too.

People like Michael McDowell in the article above and many others are realizing this and planting native species, which builds islands of native habitats, and can have a great impact on helping wildlife.

May 1-9th is wildflower week in NYC. Click here to see over 45 events taking place in all 5 boroughs. There will be botanical walks, lectures, planting natives, cooking natives (that sounds funny), etc. It looks like a fun and interesting week, which ends with Mother’s day. For the past 3-4 years we’ve gone to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on Mother’s Day. One of my favorite gardens there is the native garden. It’s kind of hidden, which makes it much less crowded. It’s a quiet, hidden spot within the garden. I recommend it over some of the showier gardens.

I just recently planted this little creeping wintergreen plant in a shady spot in my garden. This plant first came to my attention while I was reading Farmer Boy to Lindsay. The character Almonzo and his siblings would dig in the snow for the red, mint-flavored berries. I was reading the book during the period I was getting more and more interested in foraging, native plants and edible plants in particular. Seemed like the perfect plant for me. Plus it is meant to grow in the shade. My tiny, Brookyn garden has several different zones. One of them is pretty deep shade once the neighbor’s mulberry tree fills in with leaves. I had been considering growing mushrooms, but somehow forgot about that endeavor.

In case you aren’t familiar with this beautiful, native plant, it bears bright read, slightly mealy berries in the winter. The foliage turns a lovely red also. What makes it so interesting is that it is the source of oil of wintergreen. All the flavoring for toothpaste, gum, candies, etc. came from this plant before an artificial wintergreen flavor was developed. I squished one of the berries and sure enough it had a very strong wintergreen scent. You can use the leaves to make a tea. The plants grow in the woods and have pretty bell-shaped flowers. Take a look around when you go hiking to see if you find the plant. Here’s a link that gives some more information on growing it and has a photo with the berries.

The plant likes well-drained, acidic soil. Hopefully it will like its spot in my garden and spread all over the place. In the meantime, I’m going to do some research to figure out what I can make with the natural wintergreen flavor.