2022-02-09T08:00:00Z
Jen Young
Fascinating… now to find our wild friends…
After reading this my partner and I began trying to think of the wild varieties of nightshades, squash, grasses, etc. around here that we could possibly use to inoculate our seeds this year. Pretty exciting to think about.
Masha Zager
I just came up with my own list of appropriate weeds and wildflowers that are growing on my property. The only thing I couldn’t find anything for was squashes/cucumbers. Cucurbits don’t seem to grow wild in my part of the country (Northeast). Here’s what I came up with:
Brassica: Tower mustard
Tomato, pepper (solanaceae): Horse nettle
Beans, peas (fabaceae): clover
Allium: wild scallions
Radicchio, sunflowers, artichoke (asteraceae): Helianthus, goldenrod, aster
Fennel (apiaceae): Queen Anne’s lace
Corn (poaceae): Indiangrass, purpletop
Jen Y
It’s like you live where I live. We have a lot of the same plants here.
Brassicas: Wild mustard
Nightshade: Horse nettle, pokeweed
Beans/legumes: Birds foot trefoil, partridge peas, lespedeza
Alliums: walking onions (not exactly wild but they definitely do what they want), wild leeks
Roots/asters: chicory, goldenrod, so many
Fennel/anise: Queen Anne’s lace, sweet cicely
Corn: Indiangrass, bluestem
There’s supposedly a C. pepo ozarkana that’s native to these parts, but I haven’t found it yet…
Masha Z
Great additions! Though pokeweed is not a nightshade, according to Wikipedia (dubious source, I know). I seem to be out of the range for c. pepo ozarkana.
Jen Y
No you’re right, it’s not a nightshade. I’ve heard it’s a pretty good companion though, and I’ve seen it growing wild all over here in places where escaped tomatoes have done really well too.
Dang. Maybe throw a couple seeds in random places in your yard and see which one does the best?
Lauren Ritz
Maybe take some soil from an area where your squashes grow really well, and try it that way?
Julia D
There is this site, inaturalist.org, where you can type in a plant family, and it will show you places on a map where that plant has been found and tagged in the system by others. I was driving through Death Valley on my way home from Utah, and I used it to look for Coyote Melons. Didn’t find them… wrong time of year… but this site might be useful from somebody? Looks like wild cucumber grows in the northeast. Observations · iNaturalist
Jen Y
I love inaturalist. Didn’t even think to look things up in there. I like using the companion app, Seek. They do fun challenges where you can get friends together to find certain types of plants/animals/insects/etc. For a while it was one of the highlights of my bike ride home from work - stop to look up plants and find bugs.
Masha Z
Thanks so much! Great resource. I even found a sighting of wild cucumber a few miles from me. Maybe I can persuade this person to let me dig one up… assuming it’s on their property and not on state land or something.
joseph z
iNaturalist is so wonderful. I use it for so many things. I currently have a rogue nursery woody plant that, for whatever reason, I can not identify. I often am working with rare and exotic ethnobotanical plants so this isn’t all that strange BUT typically through a season or 2 I can determine what it is through basic Botanical sleuthing. I am working with 2 persons on iNaturalist at present as we keep funneling it into a ‘higher’ phylogenetic category. It’s been a fun meander down ‘WTF is this?!?’
Julia D
I collected seeds from these wild brassicas, I call them Sea Kale, but no idea if that’s correct. Anyway, they grow in salty beach sand, often with no precipitation from May-Oct. , and some are giant. I’m starting some in sand at home now with and without cabbage seeds
Ray S
It’s late summer here and I’be been out collecting seeds of wild carrot and wild lettuce. The wild lettuce doesn’t have any dormancy that I’ve noticed.Seeds drop and up they come. I think the wild carrot might though as it only seems to emerge in spring. I’ll know in a few weeks because I’m about to sow carrots for winter and will sow a row of wild carrot between the carrot rows.
This all dovetails nicely as my farming partner and I have both just finished reading Jo Robinson’s Eating on the Wild Side and are looking to ‘rewild’ our food!