Harvesting Every Day

 This week went pretty good on harvesting something every day to eat. We didn't miss a day. This is probably our worst garden year ever (a combination of cold weather and lack of work in the garden as we get ready to move) but thankfully we can still find lots of food growing wild.

Here is some of what we ate each day (I know I missed a couple things that we harvested and ate in the past week):
July 5th:
It was a really busy day of working out at our land. My brother Peter and his family joined us working for the day and so we of course invited them to eat with us too. When supper came not only was I wanting to harvest something to eat but also I needed some more food to stretch out our meal since we had eaten up most of our fruit at lunch. Mara and I decided it would be fun to get cattail heads.

Being able to canoe out to collect the heads makes it pretty easy. We have tried to collect from the swamp behind our house before and sometimes it can be very challenging without getting your feet really wet.

 The part that you are looking for is the pollen part which is above the brown "tail" while both of them are still green. Megan and Jaten had fun husking them when we got back. My sister-in-law, Holly had made the spaghetti while we were gone.

 We stuck the heads in the boiling water.

 We couldn't remember when collecting them if we wanted the pollen part or the "tail" part so we got both. We discovered it is indeed the pollen part we wanted as the other was quite tough. The dark green one above is the pollen part and the other one was the tail part. To fix them we simply cooked them in boiling water. They would be tastier with butter and salt but we didn't have either along so we ate them plain. They were still okay. You eat them off of the middle stalk.

July 6th was a super busy day with church in the morning, then a walk in our town's parade and then Ken really wanted to get something done out at the land so just he and I went out there for a couple of hours (the kids were very tired and Jonathan was sick) and got some sheathing put up on the garage so that the electrician could attach the meter. We got home just in time to get to evening church so the kids ate supper before but I had to eat after getting home.

 I warmed up the very yummy Mac and Cheese that Mara had made and since we hadn't harvested anything yet that day I ran out and got some chives to put on top of them. They made a really nice addition.

July 7th

 I collected some clover blossoms for a salad.

 Some snap peas were ready for eating. Exciting day! We love peas!

 I also picked a little Sorrel for our salad. This is heavy in vitamin C but should be used in moderation as to much can cause stomach upset I have read.

July 8th

 Lambs Quarter and other various greens made a nice addition to Chicken noodle soup.

July 9th

 I harvested some green onions and a little Chinese cabbage to go in our tacos. Yummy! My onions never grown very big but this year since we are moving next month I am just planning on eating them small otherwise I won't be eating them at all.

July 10th

I picked wild Hyssop and Peppermint for tea. I love picking my own tea ingredients!

Have you picked and used any of these wild foods before? What have you been harvesting lately?