In late summer there are many different yellow sunflower-ish flowers blooming in sunny spots in roadside ditches, along trails and field-side. One of these tall yellow bloomers is Jerusalem artichoke and there is a delicious edible vegetable growing underground beneath it. These 6’-9’ tall plants are in the sunflower family and produce yellow 4” [Continue]
Wild grapes are the most plentiful free fruit in North America. Their vines grow prolifically in most of the United States except for the southwest and extreme southeast. The strange thing is that they are mostly unnoticed until they become a problem – for example when they are about to strangle and pull down [Continue]
For many Septembers, my husband and I have traveled to Canada for duck and grouse hunting. The drive is twelve hours long and when it’s not my turn to drive, I usually have my eyes turned to the roadside ditches to see what’s growing there. (There really isn’t much else to look at in [Continue]
You probably think a pine tree just stands there year after year, shedding a few needles, getting a little taller and not changing much at all. Most people don’t know that many parts of the white pine are edible. It would be a shame to find yourself in a survival situation and not know that [Continue]
Our golden retriever, Lucy, left us last spring at age fourteen. She was always very helpful in the kitchen and garden, eating overgrown green beans, apple and pear cores, kale stalks and pretty much every other leftover vegetable and fruit except rhubarb. Lucy treated our early morning walks as trips down a buffet line. Depending [Continue]
Well, this just seems wrong. Wouldn’t you figure that a plant called duck potato would be something that ducks would eat? Not so, and for a couple of reasons. More on that later. I’ve seen duck potato plants all my life, but didn’t know what they were. I called them arrowhead plants for lack of [Continue]
Highbush cranberry isn’t a true cranberry, although the berries are similar in both taste and appearance. The Latin name is Viburnum opulus var. americanum, which is important to know if you buy plants for growing cranberries for your own consumption or to support wildlife. Highbush cranberries are multi-stemmed shrubs growing 10–15 feet tall and 10-12 [Continue]
When the forest is still a dreary brown and gray in April, a graceful spray of white flowers might catch your eye. These are the flowers of the wild plum. Wild plum trees and shrubs can be found in prairies, woodlands, pastures, and hedgerows, and along roadsides and riverbanks. They may be multi-stemmed shrubs or [Continue]
If you are male, you’ve likely never heard of evening primrose. If you are female, you may have, especially if you are interested in natural health remedies. Without going into detail, evening primrose oil is said to help with a range of “female problems.” It is also effective for a long list of other maladies [Continue]
In my neck of the woods, or rather, on my bend of the river, it was a bad year for lotus. Or a good year for lotus. It depends who you are. Boaters and fisherman would say it was a bad year; however, nature photographers and lotus plants themselves rejoiced. Acres of lotus lined [Continue]