picking your own wild herbs?

[creeman]

How many go out to the woods in the spring to pick some herbs or other healthy plants like leeks,wild garlic or mustard or the fiddle heads or puff balls or even moral mushrooms.

[SpyderLady]

creeman said:

How many go out to the woods in the spring to pick some herbs or other healthy plants like leeks,wild garlic or mustard or the fiddle heads or puff balls or even moral mushrooms.

I don't but its time I learned.

We need someone that will describe what they look like, post pics of them so us folks that are learning don't get the wrong thing. Tell us where they are most likely found, what parts to use, for what ailment.

I think I need to go dumpster divin to find some baby food jars for my new collection this spring.

I plan on learning and taking notes on each one.

[califgirl]

I love garlic, and would love to find fresh wild garlic. Not sure what it looks like. Or how long it can be stored.

[olhillbilly]

I pick willow bark just as the buds are startin to appear on the twigs. Usually around march. Willow bark is the natural form of aspirin.
I pick plaintain anytime i need it, fresh. For bites, stings, festers, itching, etc.
I pick morel mushrooms in the spring, usually they appear when the mayapples have came up. Puffballs arent usually around till fall.

Mayapples are good to eat, but only when they're ripe. They taste a lil like a kiwi. (to me) They're yellow when they're ripe.

Pawpaws are ripe anywhere from the middle to late september an sometimes on in to early october.

Mullin blossoms make good earache drops when stored in sweet oil.

Sumac in late summer makes good lemonade type drink.

I have wild cherries, elderberries, an wild grapes, here.

Poke shoots, lambsquarter, an curly dock greens, an dandylion.

Wild onions w/fried rabbit.

Walnut, pecans, an hazelnuts.

Let me getta start of tobacco an you can fence me in here, away from society.

[creeman]

Dried elderberries crushed with a little water then rubbed on your sore joints.It relieves the soreness.As for wild garlic it looks the same as the garlic that you grow in gardens just smaller.You can tell its garlic when you break a stem off one it has a strong garlic smell.It stores the same way as the garlic you grow.

[SpyderLady]

Good info so far. Wish there was pics of each one tho.

Sumac in late summer makes good lemonade type drink.

We are being serious here, right. We have sumac around here but it is toxic like poison oak!

[creeman]

Sorry I don't have a digital camera

[olhillbilly]

heres a couple links y'all m ite find handy to look up pictures. an Creeman can meybe find pictures to help explain him self better.

for the US an canada >> plants.usda.gov/index.html

for Canada >> www.evergreen.ca/nativeplants/search/

[WVsnowflake]

This is a mullien leaf. It is a major staple in my herb closet... We use it in the winter months for chest colds. Dry it and you can either smoke it ( like my dad & hubby) or do like me and place some in a bowl add boiling water. Place head over bowl and towel over head Around bowl. Breathe in vapors. It really does help with breaking up congestion....

[WVsnowflake]

And this is elderberries. good for what ails ya !!! ( specially made into wine Granny always said)

[creeman]

Thanks for posting the pictures.

[buzzard]

I've picked wild fruit, but never herbs. Everytime I go into the wooded areas, I get danged poison oak! I can stand 100 feet away and catch it it seems like.

[SpyderLady]

That mullien leaf looks a lot like lambs ear I used to have in my flower bed until our late freeze last yr killed it all. I really liked it too. It was so fuzzy and pretty. Didn't much like its minor flowering tho.

I reckon I have seen elderberries on small bushes in the wild all my life and didnt know what it was. Still not sure if its what I have seen tho. I guess I should look up what the bush part looks like.

[WVsnowflake]

The common elderberry begins to bud out in late spring with terminal cymes that are typically dome shaped or can be somewhat flattened.









When the elderberry fruit ripens, it turns black.

They make a purple colored dye, so be careful when squeezing the juice out or you will have purple hands

[WVsnowflake]

Mullien leaf is very wide. where your lambs ear is narrow. Mullien also grow very tall with a tall seed pod on top, containing hundreds of tiny black seeds. the best time to harvest it is in the spring when the leaves are small they are at there most potent then...



Elderberry
Native Americans used the flowers, berries, and bark of elderberry trees to treat fevers and joint pain for hundreds of years, but elderberryÍs real claim to fame is as a cure for the flu. Israeli researchers have developed five formulas based on elderberry fruit that have been clinically proven to prevent and ameliorate all kinds of influenza.

Parts Used
Most commonly the flowers or berries. Dried fruits are less bitter than fresh.
The stems and leaves are poisonous.


Summary
Extensive research show that elder stop the production of hormone-like cytokines that direct a class of white blood cells known as neutrophils to cause inflammation, especially in influenza and arthritis. On the other hand, elder increases the production non-inflammatory infection-fighting cytokines as much as 10 fold.
Elder berries are known to be effective against eight strains of influenza. This suggests that elder be superior to vaccines in preventing flu, because flu vaccines are only effective against known strains of flu, whereas the virus is continually mutating to new strains. Vaccines have another draw back: over half of people who get them report side effects.
Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu, of Hadassah-Hebrew University in Israel found that elderberry disarms the enzyme viruses use to penetrate healthy cells in the lining of the nose and throat. Taken before infection, it prevents infection. Taken after infection, it prevents spread of the virus through the respiratory tract.
In a clinical trial, 20% of study subjects reported significant improvement within 24 hours, 70% by 48 hours, and 90% claimed complete cure in three days. In contrast, subjects receiving the placebo required 6 days to recover

[WVsnowflake]

Morell mushrooms






Fiddle Heads

[SpyderLady]

Thanks for the pics. yep elder berries around here, didn't know that is what it was. So the leaves and stems are poison. Good to know that.

I hate it when birds drop those purple poops on the car!!

Now what about the puff balls? How do you save or use those?

[creeman]

wvsnowflake thanks for the pictures and helpful info.

[WVsnowflake]

PuffBalls

www.mushroomexpert.com/puffballs.html

Puffball cleaning and recipe
www.mssf.org/cookbook/puffballs.html