Not just dandelions, a lot of the plants that we now consider weeds were transported here for their health benefits, or for other important uses. The plantago (green plantain/psyllium) plant was called something like “white mans footprint” because the first settlers planted it everywhere they went and it adapted and spread literally all over the United States. Tansy is another plant that we consider a noxious weed in many parts of the country; but it was used on dirt floors because it repels insects and helped to keep out bedbugs and fleas and other unwanted bugs from coming in the house. Mullein is another one that was brought over because it helps with lung congestion, among other things. I mowed so much of that “weed” down when I lived in Idaho, and now I have planted seeds and trying to grow some out here.
Over the years when I cooked a lot I would attempt to buy dandelions and they were so pricey for a bunch.....love those greens, but can't stand in kitchen to do what I could do for years,
Are you looking to grow wild rice or the rabbit @Mary Stetler ? I toyed with the idea of planting wild rice here, but decided it would become invasive. We used to raise rabbits, but even my hard-nosed sons had a hard time butchering them...although they don't mind shooting them i the wild.
My daughter grows meat rabbits. I grew the cow. I did not think wild rice would invade so easily. But in Wisconsin, it is a native species. Daughter has always been ok with butchering rabbits although not her favorite sport. She started doing it for her dog to avoid cancer causing store bought food. She would do anything for that dog. I don't get up for it well. As a matter of fact, this morning, I reached into a bag of scratch grains and something grabbed my hand! I dispatched it with my cane. It was a chipmunk. It is bad to hit something but not want to hurt it. We have a service, although it is less and less, where a butcher will come to the farm and shoot the cow quickly and quietly while it is enjoying breakfast. No suffering. It bothers me the fear and suffering shipping can cause animals.
That is one of the reasons that I have almost stopped eating meat, @Mary Stetler . I love animals, and I , too, have butchered rabbits, chickens, and other livestock; but it is something that i no longer want to do. I miss fishing, but I have found that I would not put the worm on the hook anymore, nor would I want to clean and eat the fish after i caught it. There’s a lot of good protein foods that are at least as healthy as eating animals (if not more so ), and I am working on restructuring my diet around more plant-based foods. I still eat some meat, but not as the main part of the meal, except maybe when we go out to eat. Otherwise, I add some kind of animal protein in with the food , more to add flavor to it, and so that Bobby gets to enjoy eating meat. The beef steer gets to over a half ton, and has lots of muscle, and he just eats greens and grains….. and in the pasture, just grass and no oats or corn. He gets all of the nutrition he needs with basic plant foods.
It's so foreign to me hearing of living on a farm, I married an Iowa farmboy back in 60's and when he left home, wanted nothing to do with farm life ever again. I have in the city for all my adult life, and grew up in a small town with chickens and gardens....ummmm
Yeah, ya know? After I posted I thought maybe I should have waited for Faye's idea or Rural Life to tell the nitty gritty. Some may not want to hear of farm stuff. Farm life in the 60's was hard and a lot of kids had to really work! Mechanization should have made things easier but I think it just made things bigger. I am a fake farmer. I do what I like not what I have too, mostly.
Do you have any suggestions for protein foods that will store well? I've been thinking of getting some protein whey powder to have on hand just in case meat becomes scarce. Funny, I once thought of raising meat rabbits, but recall there's something about their protein that's an issue...maybe the lack of fat in the critter so you digest it properly?
What we have is legumes (beans, lentils, peas), both dry and canned, we have protein powder (which we use every day anyway), and I have added some of the Auguson Farms dehydrated foods, like the vegetable stew, black bean burger, and both beef and chicken flavored TVP (textured vegetable protein). They also have regular dried meat, but it is too expensive for me to buy. Greens also have a lot of protein , and I have started dehydrating some of the greens that i am growing in the garden, and then I can add them to soups, stews, and even cakes when they are powdered and stored. One of the easiest greens to grow turns out to be sweet potato greens. You can get the starts/slips from a store-bought sweet potato, and then you can get more starts by cutting off the ends and putting them in water to root. I have some growing in deep containers and hoping to actually get sweet potatoes from those this fall, and some of the others are just in smaller containers, and I am harvesting the greens as they grow, and then drying what we do not use in cooking that day.
I don't think peanut butter's got a long shelf life. When I first moved in I bought some MREs, but have not looked at their expiry dates.
You can buy powdered peanut butter. Not sure about shelf life because... I don't care. My sister and BIL (who live on a farm in Georgia) have an entire storeroom filled with "disaster" foods. They bought some kind of survival foods that are supposed to be stable for 30 years... freeze dried meat, veggies, etc. They also have 3 giant chest freezers and a huge pantry full of home-canned veggies, fruits, meats, jelly/jams, honey, you name it. They also have an arsenal of weapons and ammunition and a whole-house generator. They were preppers when prepping wasn't cool.
Amazon sells the Auguson Farms products, and often has them at up to 50% (or more) off of some foods. Just do a search for Auguson Farms, and you can see what all they have available, and what is on sale. I try to peruse Amazon and look for sales on things we use all of the time, like the whey protein, and then buy it when I find a good sale.
I started prepping in the eighties with Mountain House freeze dried foods. It really does last decades. I just opened a can of cheese omlettes. It is fine. But it costs about 5 times more now. There were freeze dried shrimp. They were salad sized but were breaking up when I opened the can about 10 years ago. They were quite edible, though. There are meats and dinners and breakfasts....