Does anyone plant their own wild edibles ?

pitdog

pitdog

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Apr 13, 2007
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I'm not sure what you would call this practice but I have read of people taking seeds/bulbs etc ( apple, tomatoes, potatoes, certain berries etc ) to wilderness areas they frequent and palnting them so that they have a supply of created wild edibles for them to feed on.

I realise that many would frown on this practice as you are changing the natural environment but it would give you a varied food source should you have to take to the woods in a survival situation.

What are your thoughts on this practice ?
 
According to Sam Thayer, this is exactly what native Americans did in pre-columbian times. They weeded patches of wild edibles, and maintained them similar to a garden. Europeans didn't recognize any "gardens" when they came over, since there were no neatly tilled rows of plants, and thought the natives to be totally ignorant of the practice of gardening.

I personally love the idea and hope to try it some time.
 
Ive considered it many times, but i always drop the idea. Im against changing the natural enviroment and brining something in that wasnt already there. Plus, i personally, have no need for it.

But i if i lived in an area where the was a high risk of natural disasters/civil unrest/armed conflict etc, where i might have to grab my BOB on short notice and head for/through the hills, then i would have seeded several places all over my different escape routes and thus creating a fresh stash of veggies/fruit.
 
The thought has crossed my mind on more than a few occasions - especially if you use native plants, rather than buying a pack of seeds at home depot. I originally got interested in the practice after reading about "guerrilla gardening" where people in cities will plant flowers and trees in abandoned lots and every spare scrap of bare dirt they can find - sometimes for food and sometimes just to bring a bit of green into the concrete jungle. It started making me think "if they can do that, why can't I have a few blackberry bushes along the trail where I walk my dogs?" It's a tempting idea, at least.
 
Yes, I did, for a couple of reasons.


I had some really nasty, thorny blackberry bushes -- the kind of thorns that are so sharp you don't feel them cut you, you just look down and see a bloody mess -- that were growing all over the place. I dug them up, preserving as much of the root structure as I could, and planted them in trenches I dug along the lines of my property inside my palmettos (which provide food, and are a good privacy fence/windbreak), and gave them some nice planting soil on top (didn't have any compost as I had just moved in. I did this:
1.) Because I love blackberries
2.) I now have a natural privacy fence with the palmettos and natural razor wire fence with the blackberries. Fences that grow food -- pretty cool, eh?

I've also found some naturally occurring plants in wooded lots that were about to be cleared for developers, like strawberries, wild onions, tomatoes, leeks, etc and took them before they got ripped up.

I prefer the wild edibles because they've already proven to be able to live in the local climate and soil, and are not hybrids. I've gotten some funky looking tomatoes, but they taste fine, in fact they have more flavor than store-bought.
 
G'day Pit

I do the exact opposite.

I have planted native "Bushtucker" plants in my garden at home.

Great way to teach kids what various native wild edibles look like year round :thumbup:



Kind regards
Mick
 
Yup, I plant the 'wild' stuff in my yard. The blackberry bushes are LOADED this year and the wife is busy making jelly, YUM!
 
To answer the question asked in the subject line... No. No one plants their own wild edibles. If you plant them, they aren't wild. Jeez Pit... doofus.

:p
 
Dylside said:
To answer the question asked in the subject line... No. No one plants their own wild edibles. If you plant them, they aren't wild. Jeez Pit... doofus.

:p
Click to expand...

Not so sure on that one buddy !

If ya pull off some grass seed and toss it in the air as ya walk is that grass no longer wild ? Now take the seed and walk about a mile in one direction and toss it in the air, it's still wild eh !;)
 
Cpl Punishment said:
Yes, I did, for a couple of reasons.


I had some really nasty, thorny blackberry bushes -- the kind of thorns that are so sharp you don't feel them cut you, you just look down and see a bloody mess -- that were growing all over the place. I dug them up, preserving as much of the root structure as I could, and planted them in trenches I dug along the lines of my property inside my palmettos (which provide food, and are a good privacy fence/windbreak), and gave them some nice planting soil on top (didn't have any compost as I had just moved in. I did this:
1.) Because I love blackberries
2.) I now have a natural privacy fence with the palmettos and natural razor wire fence with the blackberries. Fences that grow food -- pretty cool, eh?
Click to expand...

Back in the day my uncle used to grow quite a crop of...er...something else...inside the most massive patch of blackberries you've ever seen. They towered way over head and followed one bank of a river for hundreds of yards. Every year we'd make huge amounts of blackberry jam, pies, etc. The price? Blood. One hell of a privacy fence.
 
Yep! Doing several variations on this theme this summer.

-I've transplanted several wild grapes to my garden. Unsurprisingly, they're outperforming the Niagara vines I bought from Lowes by orders of magnitude. I'm going to thin the fruits aggressively so they'll be big and sweet like they ought to. (That's the idea at least.)

-I planted some Jerusalem artichokes. My buddy harvested them from a wild stand. I guess I'm domesticating them.

-I'm tending several wind grape vines and a wild peach tree. Pruning, thinning the fruits, etc. Ok, that's not planting. But I'm gardening them.


By and large, I suspect the most effective method is encouraging something that's already growing there. Eliminate it's competition, fertilize it, etc. Just by being growing where it is, it has proven it's the most survivable plant in that spot at that time. So you know the environment is right. Plus, many of the most desirable fruits and veggies are perennials. Your well-established plant is going to return much more yield per hour of sweat you invest than a little seedling.

That's my theory anyway!
 
pitdog said:
I'm not sure what you would call this practice but I have read of people taking seeds/bulbs etc ( apple, tomatoes, potatoes, certain berries etc ) to wilderness areas they frequent and palnting them so that they have a supply of created wild edibles for them to feed on.

I realise that many would frown on this practice as you are changing the natural environment but it would give you a varied food source should you have to take to the woods in a survival situation.

What are your thoughts on this practice ?
Click to expand...

Taking commercial seeds and planting them, I probably wouldn't do. Helping out already growing plants, maybe. A lot of commercial plants would need to be staked, marked, etc., so you're gonna be changing more than you think.

I live in the woods though, so I guess anything I plant has potential to go "wild". I really don't plant much though, but use what's already covering the place. Just had a bowl of noodles heaped with blackseed plantain and red clover. Yummy.
 
parsley (Japanese parsley) is planted within my guarden.
It originally was a wild one, taken from the backyard mountain.
Young one in spring is very good.
 
Hey Pitdog,

Excellent topic. The book "Tending the Wild" documents how the Natives of California grew wild edibles all over their regions for food and medicine.

I live in Idaho and plant edible native seedlings that I purchase from U of I all over my land so that in the years to come I can eat as I walk through the forest. Once they are planted they are hardy to this region and need no further care.

I've planted blackberry, serviceberry, currants, kinnikinnick, wild cherry, wild apples, walnut trees, and many more.

Also there are stories of the aboriginal tribes of Australia doing the same thing before they were forced on to reservations. Australia used to be a lush environment but it is now a desert.
 
Mannlicher said:
iff'n you planted them, they would no longer be 'wild edibles'. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yep, what I was thinkin' :D.

Nope, no wild edibles, but I have been thinking about moving dandelions to the garden. Lots of horse manure dumped in there over the years, some great tasting vegetables came out of the super soil. I've dumped a lot of wheelbarrows full.
 
I took a wild edibles class from this one guy and he had a 'weed' garden at his house. Basically just plants that most people call weeds but kept him fed pretty well. He said all he had to do was turn the soil once a year and water. Didn't have to fertalize it or weed it or nothing. In fact "weeding" defeated the point.;)
 
I own 85 acres with probably 300 around it unoccupied that I can hike on.

I've planted stuff like Ginseng before in my woods but mostly my woods have plenty of wild edibles without cultivating and I have big garden anyway.:thumbup:
 
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