Spring Tonics Present Themselves

Vitamin-Packed Goodies are Popping Out All Over!

I’m sure most people as as glad as I am that “Standard Time” was shortened significantly this year, having never quite made the adjustment to early darkness in the first place. Springing the clock forward early just puts us back where we were anyway all the dark winter long. Easter’s early this year too, and as my mother used to say, you can’t be sure it’s really spring until Easter.

Of course, last year we suffered a hard Easter freeze in mid-April that ruined the fruit and mast crops irreparably - even fooled the dogwoods that were in full bloom! So while garden preparations are proceeding apace with the march of March, and potatoes, lettuce and peas have been planted, we’re not ’safe’ to really get things in the ground until late April.

Despite this, the daffodils are in glorious bloom along with forsythia, the crocus have come and gone, the lilies are growing fast and everything’s budding. All I can do is hope the fruit and mast aren’t ruined this year by another late freeze, but there are many things growing right now that a homesteader can make good use of just because it’s there. All of these goodies are packed with vitamins and serve to help prep the system after a long, slim, dark winter.

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Edible Wild Things: “Cossack Asparagus”

The Common Cattail (Typha latifolia), a.k.a. the broadleaf cattail, and its cousins the narrowleaf cattail, southern cattail and blue cattail, grow throughout North America and much of the rest of the world. They like to grow in shallow water-catchments off the side of roads, at the low end of agricultural fields, near ponds, lakes and swamps. Most people are very familiar with stands of cattails in their area, but may not have thought much about how useful this plant is as food and medicine.

Almost all parts of the plant are edible at the right time of year. As a member of the grass family (as are wheat, rice, corn, oats, barley and rye) that has thus far escaped concentrated cultivation, the homesteader might develop as much a liking for cattail foods as for other wild foods such as acorns, sun chokes, ground nuts and kudzu. Particularly if s/he has a nice natural stand of cattail in the bottomland marsh, where it’s easy to harvest edible parts at all times of year. In fact, management by harvesting can contribute to the general robustness of a fine stand of cattails and increase yields.

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