Saving Seed and other gathering notes

I wanted to share a website for those of you who have asked me about saving seed.  I see no reason to repeat information on the web when someone else has done so much better than I could ever hope.  There is still time to squirrel away some seeds from your garden for planting next year.


Check out http://howtosaveseeds.com/index.php

You will not be disappointed by the information you find there and there is also a contact section if you have any other questions.


Happy hunting to all my orange clad friends in Wisconsin this weekend.

On a slightly divergent topic but right in line with hunting and gathering is that the fall mushroom season is not over.  I am a very novice shroomer but do know a few of the basics that I can't mess up like puff balls, shaggy manes, and morels (spring).  I found some shaggy manes during work while checking over the city vacant lots for trash and tree work.  They were prime for the picking and I did.  At another vacant lot, I had several shrubs growing over the alley line and had to cut them back for clearance.  When I cut off some of the juniper branches, they were loaded with juniper berries.  I have started collecting some each year as they are used when making homemade corned beef.  (Check out Alton Brown's recipe on the Food Network website.)  They are also great when used in a rub with fresh rosemary, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper.  Jamie Oliver from the Cooking Channel crushed everything together and rolled a venison tenderloin in the rub before cooking it.  I did the same for my family and it was really good.  

As you can tell, you don't have to go to the woods to find good things to eat.  I have found puff balls right in our park during early morning dog walks.  Ferns immerging in the spring produce delicate fiddle heads for sauteing.  I have also pulled the young perslane which grows like a weed in my beds and steamed it (taste like spinach).  Dandelion greens provided the first fresh greens of spring for the early pioneers.  My mother had us collect the yellow part of the flowers for homemade dandelion wine (we had to pull them off the green parts as we picked as the green makes a bitter wine).  Kids are notorious for eating their way through the berry patch and we were no different.  Raise your kids like this is normal and they will be more open to new tastes.

Enjoy the final days of autumn and forage for those late season finds.  Who doesn't like free food?