A Spring Wander With Some Wild Garlic Digging & Drying

[Mistwalker]

I recently bought a new Fiddleback Boudreaux, because with my hobbies I love the farmer/field connection and the colors looked perfect for my wanders.

I've taken it on a couple of wanders through some fields along some river bottoms, to see what I could find. The old field growth from last year, the thistle and golden rod etc., is drying up and breaking down. Still good tinder materials on dry cool spring nights, but the new growth underneath it is quickly coming on.

I think these two are Lactuca Floridana, but I'm not sure yet

The Dandelions and all the varieties of Lactuca we have here are coming on pretty quickly

The Lesser Celandine has already bloomed

And the onions are already flowering. So I dug a few of those while I still can

The Robins are nesting

And the hawks are hunting the open fields while they can

 

[Mistwalker]

These guys get really still when they hear the hawks

There was a lot of Garlic in the river bottoms

It's early for Garlic picking, I usually pick it in the summer, but I needed some for a "spring tonic" extract I'm making, so I gathered a bit for that. It gets pretty big down in the river bottoms

So I gathered a good handful of garlic and onions and headed home to dry the garlic, the onions will go in the fridge and be eaten as green oinions with meals.

As for drying the garlic, the first step is to wash it good and let it dry.

Then I trim the lower leaves to reduce drying time.

Then I tie them between two sticks, and hang them out of the sun in airflow and let them dry.

The mulberries and the Lactuca were coming along, I'll check in on those again on the next wander along the river bottom

....

 

[Fiddleback]

What a great set of pics Brian. Thanks for posting. The knife looks great. Hope you love it. Boudreaux is how its spelled. No bigie.

 

[Acutereference]

Wife raises domestic garlic and has had good luck storing it a little bar type fridge. Last year's crop is still going strong. Nice photos, BTW!

 

[Mistwalker]

What a great set of pics Brian. Thanks for posting. The knife looks great. Hope you love it. Boudreaux is how its spelled. No bigie.

Thank you! I'm glad you like them, I do love the knife actualy, it's perfect for what I have in mind for it. It handles great, it's the right size to pair with a machete for field wandering later in the summer, and I love the way the colors pop in the field. And thank you, I fixed it, my apologies.

Wife raises domestic garlic and has had good luck storing it a little bar type fridge. Last year's crop is still going strong. Nice photos, BTW!

Thank you! I've been thinking about a few things in pots here. I'd have to do pots or raised beds. All the land in this area was stripmined in the 50s before these neighborhoods were built in the 60s and 70s

 

[Mistwalker]

The onions are in full bloom even up in the higher elevations now

Garlic scape tips on the blade, and flowering onion scape tips to the right

Even the smallest of the onion scape tips is much larger than the largest garlic scape tips I could find. When they're young and tender the scape tips can be picked and eaten for a more subtle garlic flavor in recipes,

 

[ROCK6]

Ironically, wild garlic is a weed in my yard and surrounding grassy fields. I like to cut it with the riding lawnmower and smell garlic throughout the whole area

ROCK6

 

[Mistwalker]

Ironically, wild garlic is a weed in my yard and surrounding grassy fields. I like to cut it with the riding lawnmower and smell garlic throughout the whole area

ROCK6

Kings Foil?! 'at's a weed! LOL, I love the smell when I mow my yard too!

It's the same way here, with garlic, onions, and dandelions. Which garlic and onions are in the same plant family. And their nutritional content and medicinal characteristics are perfect for us for the latter part and end of winter.

And then the dandelions are in the same plant family as the Lactuca.

Though the Dandelions, which come first and are always available where they are if you know what to look for, are nutritionally medicinal. In that they are very high in vitamins A, E, C, and B (including riboflavin, niacin, and folate), and vitamin K. We can eat them like food, as much as we like.

While the Lactuca plants, L. Virosa, L. Floridana, L. Canadensis, etc., contain pain relievers in the Lactucarium; Lactucin and lactucopicrin. And they cannot be eaten in as a food source due to the build up in toxicity that would cause.

But when you see things like this in context, and recognize when they show up and what they contain, you can see the sheer brilliance of our creator in what he gave us in the creation around us.

In the natural world, in the latter part of the winter, when the autumn fruit havest is all gone, and we've mostly been eating, meats, fish, and various nuts, mostly proteins. While being couped up in shelters and beds avoiding the cold and not getting sunlight or fresh air...

The onions and dandelions can be found which replenish our vitamins and minerals greatly, and then the garlic comes along and can be dried for later uses, as the spring fruits like mulberries, dewberries, blackberries develop develop.

Then the Lactuca comes along later in the spring and early summer when helps relieve the pain of all the abrasions of the body while living in a natural world, and helps us fall asleep on hot summer nights when we are sore and tired but it's too hot to sleep. And the Lactucarium can be collected and dried for later use.

And those are just very small parts of the brilliant creation we live in.