What foodstuffs have you gotten and consumed from your own garden, windowbox, back yard, fields, forests, or neighborhood wilderness?

Cafe Society
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41

Currently, I have a basil plant in a pot on the patio, and there’s an oregano plant in my backyard that I planted many years ago. In California’s mild climate it survived the winter and grew into what could almost be described as a big oregano bush. My neighbors have an orange tree in their backyard; if an orange falls off the tree and lands on my side of the fence I might consume it.

In the past I’ve grown tomatoes, bell peppers, Fresno chilies, cucumbers, lettuce, Italian parsley, and cilantro, some with better luck than others.

In the wild I might occasionally stop and graze on blackberries along the local bike paths.

42

At the edge of the property where my apartment is located, there are a good number of blackberry bushes. Now, I haven’t harvested all that much fruit over the years, and I can’t even say that it was better than what I could purchase in the grocery store, but I have to say did derive a certain satisfaction of getting my food straight from the source.

43

Apples, cherries, pears, peaches, strawberries, eggplant, peppers of all kinds, beans, tomatoes, asparagus, artichoke, beets, sunflower seeds, cilantro, onions, garlic.. maybe a few more. Oh, eggs. Wife used to eat her chickens and an occasional rabbit or quail and dove. She also ate some berries off a bush out back. Hackberry, maybe?

These don’t count, 'cause I haven’t eaten them.. yet. I found a few packages of MRE’s behind an abandoned gas station in Yermo, California. They are intact and not messed up. I tossed them in the Jeep, just in case. 35 years and counting…

44

Greens, blueberries, figs, garlic, beans, turnips, carrots, cucumbers, and one tomato. Wow, now that I write it out, my wife is actually doing very well with this.

45

For me, it is typically tomatoes and peppers.

Tomatoes are easy, everybody grows them. And a couple of slices of homegrown tomatoes adds a lot to any ham and cheese sandwich. I don’t care what Subway promotes; my ham and cheese and homegrown tomato is better than anything Subway can produce.

Peppers, though. Those are tricky. Not because they are tricky to grow; they’re not. But because you have to anticipate how many you’re going to get. I’ve got more homegrown Habaneros in the freezer than I can possibly use in the next few years.

Never mind. As per the OP, I’ve eaten peppers and tomatoes from my garden.

46

My youngest daughter built a little garden in the backyard where she grows herbs and hot peppers. She built an indoor herb garden too.

Back in my fishing days, I used to troll the Intracoastal Waterway, its feeder creeks, and nearby inlets. I never came home empty-handed. Buckets of fish were the norm—favorites included:

Redfish
Spotted Seatrout
Flounder
Red Snapper
Pompano
Sheepshead
Black Drum
Blue Crabs

Venturing offshore (the big league), I’d haul in:

Mahi-Mahi
Wahoo
Tuna
Red Snapper
Grouper
Triggerfish (worth mentioning twice—yes, they’re that good)
Amberjack
Cobia
King Mackerel

And twice a year, when the shrimp were running, I’d hit the St. Johns River with a 6-foot cast net off a long dock (pro-tip: never take a long walk off a short dock at night). After a night-full of throws I’d have a freezer full—enough shrimp to last all year. Nature’s Costco.

I don’t hunt (my vegan daughters would hunt me if I tried), but North Florida’s wild pantry includes:

White-tailed Deer
Wild Hogs (a.k.a. feral swine with attitude)
Gray Squirrels
Eastern Cottontail Rabbits
Wild Turkey
Alligator (for the gumbo crowd)

As for edible snakes… not exactly my culinary lane, but technically on the menu:

Rat Snake
Black Racer
Brown Water Snake
Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
Water Moccasin (cottonmouth)

Edible or medicinal plants:

Saw Palmetto Berries
Young Pokeweed Shoots (handle with care)
Wild Blackberries & Dewberries
Yaupon Holly (makes a zippy caffeinated tea)
Mushrooms—Chanterelles, Oysters, Morels, and the “hope you know what you’re eating” variety

These days, I mostly just hunt McDonald’s and track down a Big Mac and fries.

47

The solution to weeds in gardens is to smother them. I lay cardboard between beds and then cover it with spoiled hay or straw. I have unlimited supplies of composted horse manure due to keeping a horse, so between plants I have at least a couple inches of rotted manure. Without this I’d be drowned in weeds in a week. Mostly grass. I live on a farm.

48

Buckeyes are completely poisonous and will kill livestock. Some indigenous people leached the nuts in streams, much like acorns, until they were edible enough to be dried and ground. They need significant processing in order to be edible.

49

I’m convinced the only solution is a greenhouse. Would love to get a Sungrow.

50

Weeds are a solvable problem, with simple and time tested techniques available. If you just don’t want to apply them, that’s another thing. Greenhouses, I will candidly tell you, have their own set of challenges. In my drives around my rural to semi-rural area, I see lots of empty home-sized greenhouses and chicken coops in people’s yards. I would bet money that the stories behind both are of frustration and failure.

In any attempt to do anything with living things, the rule is that the more removed from their native environment and habits they are, the more knowledge you must have and the more work you have to do to keep them thriving.

51

We are in a HOA where we are only able to garden with pots on our deck. Right now we have two sweet cherry trees, one planted just this spring and so not yet fruited – and two currant bushes.

This year I discarded a dying potted gooseberry plant that has survived and fruited for at least 25 years. It was thorny, sprawling, and no beauty, but obviously resistant to having the root ball frozen by a cold winter.

The grass around the houses is professionally maintained. This makes our deck a bit of a island from diseases. Normally, sweet cherries do not do well in the Philadelphia area!

In the past I’ve grown raspberries in pots. This is another one that looks a bit ugly but survives our winters with no protection.

52

This year I have planted a kitchen garden here in SW England. Currently growing herbs(rosemary, bay, sage, sorrel, marjoram, fennel, oregano, parsley, coriander), veg (kale, cavalo nero, broccoli, romesco cauliflower, aubergine, chilli peppers, tomatoes, green beans, broad beans, peas, carrots, onions, potatoes, weird little things called cucomelons, plus I have plum, apple, cherry and pear trees.

I miss the days when I had my small place in Italy though - 41 olive trees, producing the most divine oil :cry:

53

Raspberries, strawberries*, cherries (sweet yellow and tart red), grapes, rhubarb, tomatoes, jalapenos, serrano peppers. Also clover and lamb’s quarters, as part of a backyard salad.

* But not the good wines we brew

54

I think they were wild plums. I remember my family would drive by and check if they were ripe.

The last year we waited too long and some other people had picked it clean.

We had a wild berry vine climb up our pasture fence. I think they were called dew berries? We got maybe two handfulls. They were very good.

My grandfather had a very large fig tree in his backyard. I’m not sure if he planted it. My grandmother canned fig preserves.

55

We’ve been living here in the ‘city’ (Vermont version of city) for for seven years, and the previous owner was a horticulturist, so we inherited a number of plants that have delivered year after year with minimal intervention/tending on our part:

Grapes, currants, gooseberries, black raspberries, hearty kiwi, and asparagus are all plentiful most years. We don’t always harvest them, and certainly not as much as we could (no time or inclination to process and store the volume of small fruits), but it’s always been a nice reward.

For a few summers, we sold currants and kiwi to a small local farm-to-table-minded restaurant in our town for credit at the restaurant, which was a very exciting feeling.

I used to garden more, on and off, and would like to get back into it at some point, but for the last many years find it hard to fit tending a garden into my schedule in a way that would lead to joy and not frustration.

56

Yesterday I had some lettuce from my deck garden in my lunch salad. I’m waiting for my tomatoes and peppers to start producing.

57

Ah, but as I recall, Philly’s got mulberry trees — juicy, sweet-tart gems dangling like nature’s candy, packed with antioxidants and childhood magic. I remember picking buckets of them with the neighborhood crew, fingers stained purple, fending off birds to protect our haul. Then we’d guilt-trip one of the moms into baking a mulberry pie — good stuff. Even better a la mode.

58

From the garden, off the top of my head:

Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, pumpkin leaves, bananas, plantains, papaya, green and red peppers and various herbs

Gathered: Some African leaves and shea fruits (which I find unpalatable, but my wife likes them)

Never hunted or fished anything

59

I can add sugar snap peas to my list.

As I mentioned upthread, the soil around here generally sucks. My attempts at container gardening haven’t been that great; while cleaning out the garage earlier this year, I found some leftover seeds from my last attempt many years ago. Even though the seeds were old, I felt weird about throwing them away, so I dumped the seeds in a somewhat sunny, undisturbed part of the yard. A few of them sprouted, and I’ve managed to harvest one or two snap peas every few weeks. Tasty!

60

I come by gardening and other food production honestly. Grandparents on both sides were farmers/cattle and sheep ranchers and all maintained massive home vegetable gardens along with chickens for eggs and meat.

On the maternal side, there were also dairy cows for milk, cream, cheese and butter, all of which my grandmother made. Beef cattle for meat. Maternal grandmother raised Angora rabbits for fur, but they found their way to the table sometimes, too.

On the paternal side, my grandfather was a government hunter and trapper. But both families hunted regularly and fished.

So I’ve always gardened whenever I could. In California, it was so easy! Stick something in the ground and it would grow. It didn’t get cold enough for some things like apples. But every asparagus bed I planted in California did well and are still going, so far as I know. Harvest twice a year!

I also always kept at least a kitchen garden in homes in California: Lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions, spinach, carrots, peppers and herbs.

When we moved to Oregon, the sky was the limit! Over the years:

Arugula
Asparagus
Artichokes
Beets
Brussels sprouts
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Cantaloupe
Celery
Carrots
Corn
Green beans
Lettuce, all sorts
Onions, red, yellow, spring
Peas
Peppers, all sorts
Potatoes, all varieties
Pumpkins, just the sugar pie varieties
Rhubarb
Spinach
Kale
Strawberries
Swiss chard
Tomatoes

Other things I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Fruit trees on the property are apple, pear and plum. I grow most of my own herbs, including sage, thyme, oregano, chives, etc. (but not chervil!).

Wild blackberries and black cap raspberries grow everywhere here, and we had cultivated raspberries and boysenberries.

For years, I canned tomatoes, beans, apples, pears and jams.

Some pics from Gardens Gone By:

An onion harvest.

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The strawberry patch, pond in background.

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Tomatoes.

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The rhubarb that threatens to take over Oregon! Still producing well after all these years. I just made a pie the other day.

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Lots of greens.

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Asparagus and corn.

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Overview of the garden.

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One lazy dog sleeping in another lazy dog’s food bowl. Hey!

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Then we were added to the Deer All You Can Eat Buffet. Nowadays, it’s much easier to just take advantage of all the wonderful Oregon farmers’ markets for fresh produce.

I do miss gardening, though.

We also kept chickens, beef cattle and pigs.

And foraged for chanterelles, morels and truffles.