The Purslane Society

Yes indeed, Timothy, Ice Plant is a succulent with an appearance very similar to Purslane.  It has  edible fruits (who knew!), and the leaves are edible as well.  I havent tried it yet, because I don't have it in my garden.

As a rule, I dont use weed killer.  However, rules are made to be broken and I'll make an exception for the persistent Quaking Aspen suckers coming up from those trees we cut down this winter.  Otherwise, I feel confident eating the weeds in my own yard.  Sometimes I eat the fresh dandelion flowers and leaves, not so much because I'm hungry, but for whatever vitamins and minerals they have which I may not be getting in my regular food.

I know of a few other wild edible plants which grow around here.  I'm not sure I want to venture beyond my own yard to forage for them, though.   I really try to keep things simple.  Yet, increasing my knowledge of what is edible vs poisonous could be important in a variety of scenarios. In the meantime, I will continue to cultivate edible plants around the yard. 

We planted a Honeycrisp Apple Tree and  Frost Peach Tree this spring.  We have some Fig Trees, which are loaded this year.  The purpetual tomato patch is starting to flower, now.  And the organic potatoes I bought at Trader Joe's three years ago (and stuck in the ground after we waited to long to eat them) are still multiplying in the potato plot.  And, of course, there are pumpkin plants coming up everywhere  -thanks to the squirrels!

I don't recall ever seeing either fruits or flowers on the ice plants we had in our area. We were warned against eating them, or at least the leaves. (One such plant we did like was sour grass, but it was relatively rare.)

"Gibblet and the Ice Plants" will be performing their newly sprouted album "Plethora Of Flowers" tonight at The Gardens. Next week at The Gardens, heavy metal band "Quaking Aspen Suckers" will debut their newest album "I'm Still Here, Volume 16".

Where I grew up there was a good 20 acres or woods behind our house. There was even more across the street. We spent a lot of time there. But the only things I learned that I could safely eat are huckleberries (the red kind), blackberries (the wild small ones or the larger ones), or salmonberries. (Salmonberries should be reaching their peak ripeness if they haven't already crossed over.) Any other berry we were told not to stick in our mouth because they may be poisonous.

That's not bad advice to give a stupid kid. But I have since learned there are other things you can eat such as:

+ Oregon Grapes

+ Salal

+ And I recently read that you can eat the berries of the madrona tree (this is a "you first" situation) and that the berries are good for cider and that tea can be brewed from the leaves. If you've ever seen a madrona leaf, you'll wonder if it's made out of plastic rather than cellulose. But apparently it's not poisonous. (I may try it and report back. If I don't report back, you'll still have a result.)

+ Huckleberries (the blue kind)

Gibbnonymouse has noted that dandelions (flowers and stems) are edible.  She has also taught me that a certain type of weed (it grows all over the garden) is edible. I've tried it with no ill results and can report that they taste very good. The weed in question may have been this one.

Stinging Nettles



Who knew that those nasty things could be so beneficial?

Yeah, that probably was a dandelion. I’ll snap a photo with my own camera. And still waiting for my Puslane to grow enough to start sampling it.

Also, do as you like. But you can also quote with the quote tags like this:



The code looks like this:

[quote]To be or not to be, that is the apartment number.[/quote]

The quote icon worked well, thank you.

The edit feature works superbly!

I'm learning things all the time, Gibbnonymous. And another big "Duh!" I was copying the text from a post and then entering the Create Post box and clicking the little quote icon and then pasting in the text.

Well....duh again...you can just select the text and then hit the quote icon in the Quick Reply box and it will set it up for you automatically. I'm sure the same thing will happen if you use the "Reply" button and get the regular post box instead of the quick reply one. But it does make it easy.


And, yes, it does work from within the Create Post (or Edit Post) box.

And why don't you guys put some avatars up. You all look alike.