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Backyard Foraging|Ellen Zachos

Backyard Foraging : 65 Familiar Plants You Didn't Know You Could Eat

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Overview

There's food growing everywhere You'll be amazed by how many of the plants you see each day are actually nutritious edibles. Ideal for first-time foragers, this book features 70 edible weeds, flowers, mushrooms, and ornamental plants typically found in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Full-color photographs make identification easy, while tips on common plant locations, pesticides, pollution, and dangerous flora make foraging as safe and simple as stepping into your own backyard.

Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781612120096
  • ISBN-10: 1612120091
  • Publisher: Storey Publishing
  • Publish Date: March 2013
  • Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Page Count: 240

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TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES
Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat brings the Eat Local movement about as local as you can get. Author Ellen Zachos “presents familiar ornamental plants and weeds with a secret: they just happen to be delicious.” Secret is right—not many of us know that we can eat lawn weeds (chickweed and dandelion), exotic invasives (Japanese knotweed and autumn olive) or redbud blossoms, magnolia buds and the berries on the ubiquitous Mahonia bush (aka Oregon grape). Even our flower beds can be well-provisioned with bee balm, hostas, ferns, spiderworts and other beauties, and I can personally recommend the delicate, asparagus-like sautéed daylily buds. Zachos details which parts of which plants to eat, when and how, and where best to find them. Greens, flowers, fruits, nuts, seeds, roots, tubers and fungi are included. Color photos, descriptions and common and botanical names keep beginners on the path to safe foraging and are accompanied by advice on forager etiquette, dangerous lookalikes and common-sense cautions, like avoiding areas that are chemically treated.

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