1. Go out to where either your greens have made a whole lot of big side foliage you don't use at table, or have gone to seed producing volunteers (volunteer chard shown), and gather about forty leaves.
2. Stuff your Excelsior or Excalibur or solar dehydrator with them, or just lay them out in the sun.
3. When they're brittle, fish them out and strip dry matter from midribs. Clean up and crumble to desired consistency.
4. Dry can (bake) in jars and open to use as needed. Good for up to five years in our experience.
Kale, collards, chard, beets, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, dandelions, false dandelions, lamb's quarters, turnip, arugula, garlic, onions, young bean leaves or knotweed leaves, chicory, plantain, nettles, maple and lilac flowers, nasturtiums, kohlrabi, lettuce, and tatsoi, along with herbs to taste can all be included in this. The more variety, the better nutrition, and they all taste about the same in this form.
You could live a long time, comparatively speaking, if shut in by a pandemic, for example, on just five pounds of dried veggie crumbly and a hundred pounds of rice. (Be sure you have also secured a supply of water.)
You could, with a little acquired knowledge and some persistence, do this entirely with foraged weeds even if you have no garden.
Use in breads, soups, frittatas, quiches, on meats, on potatoes, in eggs, power drinks, hot cereals, salads, wilted salads, stir fries, etc. Also can be added to feeds such as poultry feeds.
Caveat: spinach, chard and amaranths contain a lot of oxalic acid and so there are those who should not consume them in quantity.
After twenty years of nights beneath the moon
and the clouds to find myself old is hard
crows come looking for food at the altar
monks return with empty begging bowls
others work the waves for shrimp and clams
I swing a hoe in the mountains
when Solomon’s seal is gone there is still pine pollen
and one square inch free of care
-- Stonehouse (tr. Red Pine)
and the clouds to find myself old is hard
crows come looking for food at the altar
monks return with empty begging bowls
others work the waves for shrimp and clams
I swing a hoe in the mountains
when Solomon’s seal is gone there is still pine pollen
and one square inch free of care
-- Stonehouse (tr. Red Pine)