Geo wrote:Jim,

Methinkx those deer are surplus. Moreover, since they always come out when you've got your grill or smoker going, perhaps It's Destiny. Sounds like that to me...

Geo

Too bad I am not a hunter, between them and the turkeys I could have some good eats.

polishmeat wrote:Hey Jim,

POLISHMEAT (Martin) here from the SMF forums brotha!! Nice to see you on here man! Nice shots of the deer man. I'll come over with my Remington and we can make some venison.

martin, glad you found LTH, Like I mentioned the other night, we will get together for a bbq soon.

Obviously I love where I live, for the quiet and for the wildlife. This week I finally saw the first buck on my property(typically its just daily visits by baby deer, and females. the other day was a monster 6 point buck probably tipping the scales over 300 lbs..

And today while sitting on my couch 22 turkeys just passed within my view out my front window..

A hunters or in my case a wildlife lovers paradise.

sorry no pics, my camera wasnt handy.

I just have a small urbanish yard (I doubt I'll ever see a deer or turkey here, though I did spot a woodcock once), but this year was good for backyard eats. The star was the nice crop of morels, but I've also been enjoying garlic mustard pesto (revenge on weeds), nettle tea, black raspberries (and red, but I planted those), a few mulberries and rosehip tea. I tend not to eat the dandelions and lambsquarters much, but I know I could.

what I see(a deer, one of about 8 not in the picture) daily from my deck, or even my couch:




I wouldnt trade where I live for anywhere(other than down south or Florida)

wild black raspberries are in, and the patch increased in size almost 2 x from last year. Only got a few last night, but for the next few weeks I will have fresh ones almost daily.

jimswside wrote:wild black raspberries are in, and the patch increased in size almost 2 x from last year. Only got a few last night, but for the next few weeks I will have fresh ones almost daily.

hmmmm... I see trade opportunities here...

boudreaulicious wrote:

jimswside wrote:wild black raspberries are in, and the patch increased in size almost 2 x from last year. Only got a few last night, but for the next few weeks I will have fresh ones almost daily.

hmmmm... I see trade opportunities here...

certainly, ghost peppers, and okra are on my wish list.

however Shay picks and eats them pretty quick.

We live in the city and have a gigantic, extremely productive mulberry tree on our parkway. I have to shovel the berries off the sidewalk daily. We mostly forage the raw fruit, but this year I have been experimenting with cooking. I made a mulberry-apple crisp and, most recently, mulberry-lime pectin jellies (from Peter Greweling's Confectionery at Home book).



The mulberries are very good this year-- I just wish I was organized enough to harvest a lot. Wine, jelly, sorbet,you name it! The mulberry has a thin stem through the middle, so I find it better in preparations that call for puree that was put through a food mill.

Jen

Beautiful, Jen!

the crop is starting to come in.

jimswside wrote:the crop is starting to come in.

Those look a lot like the black razz I have growing -- got 'em from a neighbor. They're scary canes: left to themselves, they'll loop along the ground, creating the sort of thicket you need a prince charming to slash through. The fruits are deeply flavored but seedy: one of the best applications for them I've found is sorbet: run through a food mill you leave most of those seeds behind.

I had another quick forage yesterday: I planted mustard six years ago, and every year I get a couple stray plants growing at the edge of the yard. A sharp young leaf is great on many kinds of sandwiches, especially a bleu cheese burger.

JoelF wrote:

jimswside wrote:the crop is starting to come in.

Those look a lot like the black razz I have growing -- got 'em from a neighbor. They're scary canes: left to themselves, they'll loop along the ground, creating the sort of thicket you need a prince charming to slash through. The fruits are deeply flavored but seedy: one of the best applications for them I've found is sorbet: run through a food mill you leave most of those seeds behind.

yes black raspberries, they do grow fast, and these wild onees have doubled the area they cover almost every year.

Thnaks for the sorbet tip.

Pie-love wrote:We live in the city and have a gigantic, extremely productive mulberry tree on our parkway. I have to shovel the berries off the sidewalk daily. We mostly forage the raw fruit, but this year I have been experimenting with cooking. I made a mulberry-apple crisp and, most recently, mulberry-lime pectin jellies (from Peter Greweling's Confectionery at Home book).



The mulberries are very good this year-- I just wish I was organized enough to harvest a lot. Wine, jelly, sorbet,you name it! The mulberry has a thin stem through the middle, so I find it better in preparations that call for puree that was put through a food mill.

Jen

Those are beautiful, Jen - I did a mulberry-lime jam last year that was excellent - the lime really offers a nice flavor contrast to the mulberries, which are mostly just sweet. We found it was one of the few preserves we liked better with seeds - they're crunchy and nutty-tasting - picking off the stems is really not that hard. I'm going to have to find the tree we foraged off of last year.

This takes foraging on your own property to a new level. Maybe you can whip up a mess-O squirrel-itos or perhaps some risotto. With food like this, maybe you can get Jethro Bodine to lend you his fancy pot passers.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... ls29m.html

I love foraging and with that I am going to try my hand at making some acorn bread this up coming fall and if for nothing else I can use the tannin I get to make some wine!

Does anyone know the rule for foraging off your property in Chicago?

It would be an interesting community mapping project to map the publically available locations where edibles or medicinals grow. Do you know if anything like that exists?

nr706 wrote: But I don't think there are many similar, fleshy plants that are common in this region.

I'm brand new to gardening, but have been introduced to purslane and have it growing in abundance in one area of my yard. I have so far sauteed it with garlic and oil, used it in soup, salad, and also sauteed it with some roasted baby red potatoes.

Before I dove into this backyard beast, I wanted to be absolutely sure that it was safe to eat, and that there were no look alikes (a side effect of growing up on a 200 acre farm and having to eat epicac on several occasions as a kid cause I'd put pretty much eveything in my mouth, including random mushrooms!). Turns out, there's something VERY similar to purslane called Spurge. Spurge is toxic, grows anywhere that purslane will grow, looks very similar, and can actually grow right next to purslane. Here's a little blurp about it on a website.

Don't worry- once you know how to identify spurge, it will stick out like a sore thumb and is immediately identifiable.

http://hotdogjam.wordpress.com/2009/09/ ... or-spurge/

Here's an image from the site that shows both purslans as well as spurge growing together...

I've been pulling and throwing away purslane all summer! I'm sure there's still a lot I've missed around the yard so I'm going to try some of the recipes I found in the next few days;
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/arch ... cipes.html

There was a bunch of it growing next to our raised herb gardens. I thought it was thyme at first as it looks very similar to our thyme plants. But I tasted it and it didn't taste like thyme so I pulled it and tossed it.

Moss roses and purslane are both varieties in the portulaca family, and look very similar. If you grow (or have ever grown) moss roses, you can ID purslane instantly.

my property in Marseilles is prime foraging grounds for some of the larger predators in the area - fox, lynx, and this big coyote I spied sunning itself, this is as close as I could get, the yote wanted nothing to do with me when he/she saw me.

Also check out those popping fall colors, mother nature is putting on quite the show this year..

jimswside wrote:my property in Marseilles is prime foraging grounds for some of the larger predators in the area - fox, lynx, and this big coyote I spied sunning itself, this is as close as I could get, the yote wanted nothing to do with me when he/she saw me.

Also check out those popping fall colors, mother nature is putting on quite the show this year..

Gorgeous pic Jim--expecting to see recipes posted for coyote BBQ shortly

Last week when it rained I had six wild turkeys in my front yard. Week before I had a wild turkey sitting on my front bench. I often see a group of them parading around the neighborhood. I do not imagine they would make good eating like a store bought turkey and its probably illegal to shoot them in your yard. They might make good fodder for the coyotes that are roaming and trying to eat my neighbors dogs. I live across the road from the place that has been in the news as where a coyote sunk his teeth into a fluffy white dog.

Hi,

Yesterday, I was sitting in the car waiting for my passenger to return. I looked in the rear view mirror to see a flash of red in a tree whose leaves are still green. I turned around to find there was an apple tree growing along a railroad embankment. Having time to kill, I brought over a bag to collect perhaps 10-pounds of windblown apples. They appear to be Jonathon apples, which I like for pies. This is an untended tree, so those apples were never sprayed so they come with the usual cosmetic defects.

Around this tree were wild roses with lots of ripe rose hips. I think I will go back to collect these for rose hip jam.

Ann Arbor, Michigan is supposed to have a lot of apple trees planted on their parkways. I don't know how many people collect from this urban landscape. Highland Park is teaming with crabapple trees along the parkway, though I doubt many are collected.

Regards,

Very impressive Cathy - nice haul, and I'll gladly take the defects!

I don't know if it's still there (I can only assume it is), but one of the treats of waiting for a table at Spacca Napoli is munching on the cherries from the cherry tree on Sunnyside, right across the street from the restaurant entrance.

Purslane is also great pickled.

Anyone getting ready for Ramps and Nettles? We've got just a few weeks here before they come on strong. Not too long before morels are coming.

Here's a piece I wrote about the various Morel Fests, I will probably be hitting the Brown County, Indiana festival, lots of hot shot foragers going to be there lecturing and giving guided forays. Ottawa isn't far, so I might get down there for one day, who knows?

Rob

http://chicagomushroomman.wordpress.com ... festivals/