Episode-2711- 24 Bullet Proof Plants for the Back Yard Hunter Gatherer
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I wanted a proactive and fun show today and shows about useful plants are always subscriber favorites. Last night on Episode 5 of Unloose the Goose we discussed the food system and it has a lot of this churning in my brain.
When I was a kid my Grandfather taught me to tend our garden. In many ways is was a lot like a small row farm. Strait rows and a row for each thing. A row of broccoli, a row of beans, a row of cucumbers, 8 rows of corn, etc.
When I moved to Texas I started out trying to do the same type of thing. I swiftly learned the Zone 6 climate with mild summers, acidic soils and great rain fall in Pennsylvania did not exist in Texas. Instead we had brutal Zone 8 summers, a predictable drought from July – Sept at the hottest time of the month. The soils were alkaline and a lot of crops that were long season in PA would bolt and be useless by May at the latest here.
I found permaculture, aquaponics, wicking beds, hydro and so much more. I started building small and different systems to teach my students with and next thing I knew my entire paradigm had changed. I still have “gardens” but I have learned to “trust nature” as Sepp Holtzer so often says. When I find a thing that does well in a place, that place becomes the place for that thing. When I find a crop that does well I grow it, when I find one that is more heart ache than it is worth, I stop trying to grow it, mostly anyway.
Today I discuss this philosophy, how to adapt it to any location or lot size and give you some of my favorite plants that are the honey badgers of edibles, medicinals and culinary herbs.
Join Me Today as We Cover
- My method in a nutshell and how it came to be
- The advantage of a system like this
- The sheer joy of quitting something that you need to quit
- My Top Honey Badger Plants to Grow
- Huauzontle
- Mints (all of em, peppermint, lemon balm, bee balm, etc. etc)
- Rosemary
- Daikon Radish
- Wild Garlic
- Lambsquarters
- Comfrey
- Chives (garlic and onion)
- Calendula
- Sweet Potato
- Celery
- Water Cress
- Swiss Chard (and beets – cool hack on this)
- Asian Eggplants
- Sugar Baby Watermelon
- Nasturtium
- Ground Nut
- Autumn Olive or Goumi
- Black Berry
- Goji Berry (wolf berry)
- Dwarf Mulberry
- Red Amaranth (any amaranth really)
- Sunflower
- Jerusalem Artichoke
- Final Thoughts – I really think this is the “better way to do this”
Resources for today’s show…
- Follow Life With Jack on Instagram
- TSP Facebook Group
- Join the Members Brigade
- Join Our Forum
- TspAz.com
- The Sky is Crying – George Thororgood and the Destroyers
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Any comments on sun choke variety for medicinal use.
thanks jack
I don’t know of any medical use of any sun choke.
I think it was in this podcast (I binged on The Survival Podcast yesterday) that you mentioned tomato leaves being edible — good to know since tomatoes are scarce on my plants this season, I can justify their existence this year! What about for chickens? Tomato leaves are on most lists of no-nos for chickens that I’ve seen. Yay or nay?
Does wild garlic grow from regular store-bought garlic bulbs? Or should I find seeds/bulbs somewhere.
Cloves from grocery garlic grow and grow really well in most instances. They don’t grow “wild garlic” though, they grow exactly what they are, they are basically clones. I generally put all the little fiddly cloves in my wicking beds and ebb and flow beds. I use the green tops like chives vs, growing them to maturity.
Honestly wild garlic is a generic term for a ton of different plants in the allium family (onions, ramps, garlic, chives). Most are more accurately a wild onion but they almost all smell and taste like garlic (with the exception of ramps).
It is an incredibly common plant easiest to id and harvest in mid/late winter or very early spring. It is very frost tolerant so you can often find tons of it in like park areas, rest stops, etc. where lawns are maintained but not chemlawned. Again think camp grounds, rest stops, trail heads, picnic areas, etc.
The reason is these areas are seldom mowed in the winter and the garlics come up before the grass all comes back so it sticks out. The areas are often irrigated and pretty easy to pull bulbs up from. Then just bring it hope and plant it. Later in the year it goes to flower and produces tiny bulblets above ground (like a walking onion), these you can plant like seed.
If you plant the below ground part you get a copy of the mother plant. If you plant the above ground bublets you get what ever it may be. It may be pollinated with the exact same type or it may be a hybrid, of course all wild plants are massively hybridized. I have tried to get as much as I can on my property. How the hell it survives the droughts of summer IDK but it does and each spring 5-6 very different varieties have taken hold and pop up and do their thing.
You can find it on etsy and ebay and such some times but no way to know what you are really getting unless you contact the seller, ask them how they source and they tell you the truth. I’d bet someone on the forum or our MeWe group could get you some and send it to you if you don’t have it around. My bet is it is all over once you know what to look for. Unless you live in the desert or tundra it is within miles of your house gaurnteed.
Going to be trying a few of these in the UK next year.
Wondering what is the name of the variety of purple potato so that I can try to source it in the UK?
Thanks
Murasaki Sweet Potato. Burpee sells them but only sells in winter to ship in spring. https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/sweet-potatoes/sweet-potato-murasaki-prod001584.html
What you want is thin purple skin and light yellow flesh. The name mursaki is likely just made up, I have heard em called Osaka as well. If you can find them in a local market as food, you can make all the slips you want from one or two of them.