Save Money on Groceries-

Today's school was out foraging in the field and in the woods.  I wanted to find garlic mustard, wild leeks, new cattails, and morel mushrooms.  Didn't find any of those, but we did find:

White Pine-Ds uses this for tea.  High in vitamin C.

Dandelion greens-use for salad.  Contain beta carotene, iron, calcium, B1,B2, B6, B12, C, P, and D, also potassium, magnesium and zinc.  Wow!

Dandelion flowers- use for jelly.

Stawberry leaves-Tea-contain vitamin C and K, soothes sore throats and can even be used as a rinse for acne.

Violets- Eat flowers and leaves.  Vitamin C

Fiddleheads- Contain carcinogens.  Don't eat too many.  Dd1 boiled some up last night.  Not a favoable report.  Do not eat if starting to uncurl-poisonous.

Nettles-Dry and use in tea, or boil up and use in soups.  High in minerals and vitamin C and B complex.  I also use dried nettles as a feed supplement for my goats and chickens.

We found flowers besides the violets, wood anemones are blooming as are the cowslips.  Dont' eat these.

We also found Labrador Tea:

The leaves can be dried and used in tea.  It's best when there is the rust colored "fuzz" on the underside of the leaves.  Do not use Mountain Labrador Tea as some say it's poisonous.

We scored some birchbark to make baskets, too.  There are a lot of fallen birch trees in our woods.  Ds thinks we could get rich with all of the baskets we could make.  That's a project to start tomorrow.  I hope I remember how, it's been a few years.

I guess you could say that this is another way to cut down on your grocery bill!

Bless God in all you do.

From Glory Farm,

Rhonda

P.S.  I'm off to make some chocolate chip cookies.