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Wild plants can become a important part of your diet. If you live by the seacoast and the water is clean, gather seaweed (dulse, kelp, nori, etc.). It is eaten regularly by Japanese, Norwegian and Scottish coastal peoples. Also, once the rain leaches it of salt, it can be tilled into your garden as a green manure. The prairies abound with edible herbs and tubers. In the Southwest Uplands, pinyon pine nuts are a rich food source. Even the desert has edible plants if you know where to go and what to pick. I have feasted on the vitamin-rich fruits of the prickly pear cactus in west Texas. Forests everywhere have berries. In the hardwood forests of the East and Midwest, nut trees can provide well for the homesteader. Did you know that some acorns can be eaten if you know how to prepare them? Get a book on wild edible plants for your area and go on field trips with native plant societies. In case the page behind that first link does not mention your state, see this list of native plant societies throughout the United States. Dining on the Wilds Homepage has many links to sites on wild edible plants. Learn carefully how to select and prepare these plants for the table. Pokeweed (Poke sallet) (Latin name: Phytolacca americana) is poisonous in its natural state, but if you pick young poke shoots and boil them in several changes of water, you may be able to remove the poison. Mushroom identification can be difficult, even for experienced pickers. Remember the famous adage, "There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters". What you think is a wild edible onion may be Death Camas if you are in the Rocky Mountains, or the poisonous Hellebore (Veratrum parviflorum) in the Appalachians. You may not even be safe in your own garden: raw green tomatoes and raw kidney beans are poisonous. Follow the link to common poisonous plants. Otherwise edible plants can be contaminated by herbicides or fungicides. Avoid gathering plants along the roadside. Use caution elsewhere. In all these cases, books and the Internet can not tell you everything you'll need to know, go with someone experienced.
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