“Growing your own food is like printing money”
-Ron Finley
The Nez Perce Indians have a survival rule of threes that suggests you should have a triple redundant plan for acquiring critical survival supplies. In previous writings I’ve spoken of various forms of food preparedness in the form of food storage. In this treatment I thought I’d discuss how we can hedge our food preparedness efforts by learning how to forage and garden. My approach to this will be a little unorthodox since I live in a large city. None the less a lot of “wilderness” can still be found since nature tends to take over any man-made area at the first sign of disuse. Look into those disturbed areas and wastelands and you’ll quickly discover a cornucopia of wild edibles and medicinals. Even more so if you took the time to plant them yourself!
Wildcrafting (also known as foraging) is the practice of harvesting wild plants from their natural habitat, primarily for food or medicinal purposes. I’ve been interested in this since I was a young child and first started spending time in the outdoors. Picking berries and salad greens is lots of fun and an invaluable survival skill should you ever have the need. It had never occurred to me that this could also be done in the city until I read Christopher Nyerges excellent book “How to Survive Anywhere”, where he suggests your study of wild edibles should start with walking around your neighborhood.
As people become more ecologically-conscious we are finding that the ornamental plants we’ve been using to decorate our urban areas are being switched from the previously used exotics to more eco-friendly local plants. As this happens more and more, those interested in these subjects are rediscovering many forgotten local wild edibles and medicinals.
Weeds such as bidens and sida that seem to be the bane of just about every yard are highly nutritious and medicinal. They were once a staple in the diet of the early Floridians as salad greens. Many of these wonderful foods are described in the excellent little book “Florida’s Incredible Wild Edible’s” by Richard Deuerling & Peggy Lantz. The hibiscus flower is another one that seems to be all over my area.
A beautiful ornamental who’s flowers yield a very refreshing and nutritional tea with a flavor reminiscent of cranberries. Commonly drank throughout the Caribbean and Mexico this is a great one to know. It is amazing how many food plants we’ve forgotten about since we started getting our food at super markets. So much so that many people wouldn’t even recognize many of the plant foods they eat if they saw them in their natural state in the wild! Sea grapes, coco plum, and American beauty berry are but a few of the forgotten wild edibles that can be found adorning neighborhoods in my city. In buffer areas and as you get closer to the wild areas you’ll find even more if you know where to look. Elderberry, pepper grass, wild onions, garlic, blueberries, and black berries are but a few.
Guerilla gardening is something I’ve started paying a lot of attention too since being told about it from one of my herbalism mentors. He learned his practice as a folk tradition in his native Cuba and put it to practice as a “curandero” (herbalist in Spanish) during the so-called Cuban “special period” where no other medicine was to be had. He told me about supplementing his groceries by fishing, catching pigeons, and planting food crops in local parks.
He showed me one of his guerrilla gardens that was well hidden by the side of an over pass where among other things he was raising bananas, plantains, and sweet potatoes. It looked so natural where he had put them, that until the city ultimately realized what it was, the city landscapers actually helped maintain it, and often helped themselves out too! This is not so unheard of, and survival expert mentions lots of great ideas for harvesting wild food in city environments in his excellent book “Urban Survival”. The examples he mentions in his book are from World War Two as people moved from the French countryside into the cities for mutual defense and protection from invading forces.
Planting foods in your own yards is a long tradition and some of my favorite examples are the victory gardens Americans planted also during the World War Two era as a preparedness effort should our regular food chains be disrupted. Now we are merely advised to have three days, worth of food "just in case". Amazing how complacent we get the further away from wars and depressions we get. In the absence of a yard we can still borrow from the examples mentioned above and plant some stuff in wastelands and forgotten areas.
It can be done just like planting a regular garden if discretion is not an issue. In fact many plants can be had for free, from the various eco-restoration organizations that are looking to eliminate invasive plants and replace them with local plants. If discretion is an issue consider seed bombs or green grenades. My two favorite methods are the classic clay seed ball, and the egg shell method. The clay seed ball takes clay soil (or potter’s powder), compost, and seeds in a 5:1:1 ratio respectively. A little water so the moisture can bind them and viola. The egg method requires you to suck out the egg yolk through a tiny incision and refill the egg with seeds and peat powder. Yes, this method is slightly better than simply scattering the seeds, but being in the egg shell allows you to throw the further.
As with many of my articles I could clearly go much deeper into these subjects but this should be enough to introduce the ideas and get you started in exploring these subjects. Furthermore I’ve included some excellent book suggestions that you can look into if you’d like to expand your knowledge of these subjects.
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