Edible Forests
Sep. 3rd, 2005 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellyssianI'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.)
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.)
