Last night the Rockingham Herb Society sponsored a free
presentation on Wild Edibles by Russ Cohen.
I was ecstatic to have just happened to see the listing for it in our local paper. It’s one thing to own Russ Cohen’s book
Wild Plants I Have Known… And Eaten and
yet another to get more information in person.
I discovered that many of the plants I was pulling from my
vegetable garden for the past two seasons have actually been edible. And they were nice specimens at that! The deep roots that took me several
attempts at pulling before I dug down deep enough to pull it out were large,
healthy Burdock! This spring, I
had hesitated to pull out anything that wasn’t grass because I knew I was going
to this talk. I am so glad I
did! It turns out that all of the
purple flowers that are coming up in my prepared beds are edible violets!
At the end of the two-hour slide show, attendees got to try
Japanese Knotweed squares that Russ brought for everyone and they were
absolutely delicious. He has a recipe
for Strawberry Knotweed pie in his book if any of you have a knotweed issue. I also have to mention I thoroughly enjoyed the snacks the
Rockingham Herb Society members baked as well!
I left with a list of native plants that I am planning on
adding to my landscape including Basswood, Bayberry, Sweet Cicely, Juneberry,
Daylily, Wineberry and Black Cherry; just to mention a few. As I add them to my landscape I will
talk more about each of the plants as well as why I am choosing the sites I am
planting them in. I am hoping to attend one of his upcoming wild edible plant walks that are on his calendar very soon. I have 10 acres of walkable woodlands and I just know they are filled with even more edibles than he covered last night!
As a side note, as I was writing this blog for you I
received a notification that a local Edible Forest Gardening event that I was on
the waiting list for just had a spot open up for me. I just love how when you are truly aligned with what you
want to do, things open up for you without you having to do much of anything.
For any of my local readers, The Rockingham Herb Society is
having a herbal plant sale on June 2nd right in the center of
Chester, NH.
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