Gardening, Foraging, Hunting, Cooking
Shrubs are a great way to preserve fruit when you don’t have the time or energy for canning. It’s also suitable for fruit that’s a little past its prime that you wouldn’t want to can anyway. I often make shrubs with the tail ends of a fruit crop, or after a foraging trip where I managed to grab a few handfuls of berries but not enough for a major cooking project
Roughly 85% of Americans drink at least one caffeinated beverage per day, most of which are derived from two plants (the tea camelia and the coffee plant) originating in Asia and Africa. But did you know we have our own caffeinated plant that makes a delicious energizing beverage?
Ah nettle, one of foraging’s finest but most polarizing ambassadors. Nettle (urtica dioica) is incredibly nutritious, containing many vitamins and minerals such as Vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, and a rich array of fatty and amino acids. Stinging nettle has been used all over the globe as a source of food and medicine for centuries, and there’s substantial research backing up its numerous health benefits.
Working in a greenhouse and on a farm where they go from wet to dry, dirty to scrubbed clean, and bitterly cold to warm throughout the day, my hands go through Hell in the Spring and often look like it. Regular lotions don’t do much since they instantly get wiped or washed off, but I have found that a thick application of beeswax salve keeps the cracking at bay.