Also, effective farming/hunting/gathering requires decades of experience. It's one thing when you grow up learning the habits and uses of local plants and animals from your parents. When forced to relocate to a completely different ecosystem (as was done to the Cherokee in the US), you have to start over from scratch. I did learn some gathering from my mother (we went on "picnics" bringing no food, but gathering with her supervision instead). My very modest goal is to add one cultivated crop each year. I started with butternut squash - now an old friend. Added beets, tomatoes, and blueberries last year. We already have wild friend in the yard - blackberries, lemon balm, purple deadnettle, dandelion, peppermint, lambs quarters,plantain. I'm wondering how we can use the onion grass. Thistle is just too hard to utilize - it gets yanked (with gloves!). Yard has been pesticide free for 35 years (except what blows from neighbors).

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

We have 2 apple trees, a cherry tree, a linden tree, a gigantic walnut tree we have to cut down next fall 😢, gooseberries, Russian blueberries, red currants, rhubarb, wild strawberries, a vegetable patch with raised beds, herb garden, calendula borders, and we want to try potatoes.

I keep forgetting the grapes. We grow grapes. 😂

But I wouldn't want to be too dependent upon any of it. We have had years with no cherries because of a frost, for example. And soon, no nuts.

Get some cuttings and grow another one or two..😊