Edible Forests

[ellyssian]

I'm really starting to look into some permaculture/agroforestry/call-it-what-you-will. Of course, Rachel had a hard sell giving blueberries out to folks on the tree tours at our last cookout - if it isn't wrapped in plastic, it's not edible, I guess.

We tried sassafras leaves today - they'll be good as an addition to salads, and I'm thinking of something with sassafras wrapped fish, maybe grilled. We have wintergreen and blueberries in abundance, and a growing amount of sweet birch, but only one is large enough for a potential tap. The various other berries we have aren't productive - we've seen one strawberry and absolutely no blackberries or raspberries. A couple of the red maples are of tap-able size, although red maples don't have quite the same quality and quantity as sugar maples they are supposed to be somewhat viable, and might make an interesting project next February.

I'd like to get a couple of linden trees growing next year, as well as an assortment of hazelnuts, hickory, and, possibly, some black walnut. The hazelnuts will probably be the only ones to get as usable nuts - the time frame on hicory is something like 10-20 years, and on walnut 25-30 years. The idea with those latter two is to get larger canopy trees supplying a food crop. The beech trees - which have been failing thus far - also have edible leaves, in addition to the nuts. I still plan on getting some of those in a few years.

I'm not planning on bringing in oodles of more trees - I'm pretty much done with that, except for the 70 or so Eastern Hemlocks for screening the property line, and those will be done over the next 5-10 years - but the ones I do bring in will have some edible value, or provide some other benefit (such as bayberries for candles, encouraging the sweet fern for its nitrogen-fixing properties, encouraging beneficial insects, keeping birds away from other foods, etc.)

Comments

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Hazelnuts will bear in a few years- we got ours as sticks, and they're big and bushy and covered with nuts. last year we got no nuts, though, since the squirrels beat us to them. I'm rather expecting the same this year... :)

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Depending on what kind of crop you have, you have to plan for a certain portion to go to the birds, literally. The squirrels will take (what they feel is) their share as well - although the cats keep the number of squirrels down. We hardly ever see them, and we have literally hundreds of acorn-bearing oaks on our property.

[(Anonymous)]

When we lived in Baltimore, My husband a nd I took many walks down a pretty street lined on both sides with walnut trees -- one major problem kept us away from the street for a season; I forget wether it was spring or fall as this was many years ago. What I do remember is why we stayed away: the awful odor. It was strong and acrid. I cannot recall if it happened during the early growth or late ripening. I think the latter, though, as when we first experienced it I believe we were also avoiding stepping on fallen seed balls.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Yep

The gingko is the same way - very tasty seeds, but the fruit smells like rotting sewage.