Gardening

thx for this thread. wild foods is a lifelong passion for me. if i may add 2¢ :

wherever we live, there are edible wild plants around us. likely lots of them. many are delicious and nutritious! many are .... not. 😏

when i was young, i had the same experience as Siwsan. i found one of them in my yard. i grew up on wild strawberry pickin, so . . . i ate it. quite disappointing. har.

now i'm old, and a weed eater (you betcha), and i know that's the first thing you _never_ do!! - is pop a plant in your mouth until you're absolutely sure it's what you think it is.

so kudos to Siwsan for tellin her friends first, and thx to the poster who gave us the taxonomic name. Hail fellow hortie! that's exactly the tool you use to make a definite ID of a plant. so far i've found every plant i've looked for on wikipedia, and the reliability factor (to me) has seemed pretty consistently high.

if anybody gets curious about the wonderful world of edible "weeds", realize from the start that wild plants, just like domesticated plants, contain all kinds of compounds. some people __ really__ can't tolerate onions, or garlic, or wheat, or peanuts - while the rest of us love those foods! Same with wild foods.

So, reading is the key. if a plant catches your eye it might be cause its a cool plant for some reason (edible or medicinal, or utilitarian, or ornamental, e.g.) . make a game of id' ing it. you might like what you find!

and read about other people's reactions to eating it. any potential reactions will be noted by somebody or other.

Siwsan, i __love__ your cats, especially Arthur. 🥰