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Post by mountaindweller on Aug 20, 2012 21:42:33 GMT -5
How about sugar beet? I never tried it but it is said you can use it as a vegetable.
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Post by steev on Aug 21, 2012 0:42:00 GMT -5
Yes, but it's lame. Might as well plant beets, enough people wouldn't know it, anyway.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Aug 21, 2012 10:08:27 GMT -5
The best thing about sugar beets is the greens. Massive, tender, bright green tops. Mucho food, and they seem to be more resistant to leaf spot than table beets.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 21, 2012 15:14:57 GMT -5
In my garden, sugar beet greens are more fibrous than Swiss chard (tougher than the GMO version I grew most recently).
I love the white colored roots! It allows me to make pickled beets, and eat them without knowing that they touched the other food on my plate. Gotta keep my priorities straight you know.
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Post by mountaindweller on Aug 22, 2012 2:50:34 GMT -5
There are yellow beets as well (not a stealth crop though). I thougt these would be better for us as we are not very fond of beets, but they just tast like beetroot.
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Post by raymondo on Aug 31, 2012 3:31:41 GMT -5
Mountaindweller, try beets roasted in a little orange juice, orange zest and balsamic vinegar ... yummmmm.
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Post by steev on Sept 1, 2012 22:33:26 GMT -5
Cardoon might be good for stealth; besides the ribs, like many thistles, the flowerbud's base is good (like an artichoke, but only the base is edible). There isn't a lot, ~2" diameter by 1/4" thick, but they're very tasty.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 2, 2012 6:20:41 GMT -5
I adore the greens from the mangels. Far nicer than ordinary beets. In fact, we've never eaten the roots, only the greens. However, with Mr. Piggy to feed, it occurs to me that it might not be a bad idea to get some beets going for him.
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Post by mountaindweller on Sept 12, 2012 22:21:45 GMT -5
Ray, my beets don't grow well, maybe they know that I don't like them too much. There's simply not much of root. But when they ever grow I'll try your recipe, fried beets - maybe they lose a bit the beety taste. Stealth crops could be defined in different ways: 1.) A crop which no one recognizes as edible and is therefore not stolen (or something that is difficult to harvest), something like oaks. 2.) A crop which will always gives you a yield no matter how the weather is, surviving floods, soaring hot winds, drougt or fire. 3.) A crop which gives you staples - carbs fat and protein when the supermarket shelves or our account is empty. 4.) A crop which no one begs you for (friends, neighbours or extended family members who suddenly don't forget your birthday and pop in), that would be jerusalem artichockes or canna edulis.
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Post by MikeH on Oct 2, 2012 8:52:02 GMT -5
After a bit of searching here on wild chicory, I got very few hits. Joyce and I were planting out some echinacea, lanceleaf coreopsis, and grey headed coneflower yesterday and while digging a hole I got most of the root of Cichorium intybus. Since the digging was easy thanks to the rain that we've finally been getting and there were lots of plants within eyesight, I decided to dig up more. Most of what I got - about 10 plants - were partial roots 4 to 6" long. I peeled them, sliced them, and dried them in the dehydrator (they dry very quickly). Then a bit of broiling in the toaster oven to dark brown them. Then a bit of crushing with the pestle in the mortar. Then through the hand-crank coffee mill. I got about 2 1/2 tbsp. Then 1 tbsp into the two-person stove-top espresso coffee maker. Half the pot into a mug of heated milk, add a bit of stevia, froth and damn, it's not survival food. It was VERY acceptable. So don't pull up all those chicory "weeds", you have.
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Post by steev on Oct 2, 2012 16:54:54 GMT -5
Other than the flavor needed in Louisianna coffee, any clues what stimulent/nutritional value chicory-root has? I'm always interested in such things, as I CAN grow weeds. Got an opinion on dandelion roots treated that way?
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Post by MikeH on Oct 2, 2012 19:24:28 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Oct 2, 2012 21:28:14 GMT -5
Doesn't look like chicory could hurt; once dried, I expect it would keep fine. Probably worth planting out in the fallow area.
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Post by canadamike on Oct 2, 2012 21:46:17 GMT -5
I sure would look to salsify and scornozera as such plants. They are almost wild plants, I had the surprise of teaching to a french visitor from Périgord that the roots of salsify where edible...in his neck of the woods, they ate the flower buds, a bit like artichokes. «They are perennials, giving us great roots, flower buds, and they can establish themselves strongly, especially given help.
Apios americana and especially Topinambour ( indian and french term), or Jerusalem artichokes also come to mind of couse, the later being maybe less sthealthyish since it is becoming popular, at least here...
Wild grapes leaves, as greens, would also fit this bill, and they can become a culinary delicacy once marinated...and it helps...
Ignorance on the part of the one which can rid you of your food is of importance in such a concept as ''stealth food'', so there must be some regional flavour to it...camassia cannot grow in Texas I think...
I sure would look at native people foods....
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Post by circumspice on Oct 3, 2012 19:34:05 GMT -5
I sure would look to salsify and scornozera as such plants. They are almost wild plants, I had the surprise of teaching to a french visitor from Périgord that the roots of salsify where edible...in his neck of the woods, they ate the flower buds, a bit like artichokes. «They are perennials, giving us great roots, flower buds, and they can establish themselves strongly, especially given help. Apios americana and especially Topinambour ( indian and french term), or Jerusalem artichokes also come to mind of couse, the later being maybe less sthealthyish since it is becoming popular, at least here... Wild grapes leaves, as greens, would also fit this bill, and they can become a culinary delicacy once marinated...and it helps... Ignorance on the part of the one which can rid you of your food is of importance in such a concept as ''stealth food'', so there must be some regional flavour to it...camassia cannot grow in Texas I think... I sure would look at native people foods.... Yes, native food plants would help cover a 'hunger gap'. But native plants have an innate problem... familiarity. I will, of course, plant as many natives as possible. But I am also researching non-native food plants as well. And recently, I've been looking into trap crops. I have a "deer problem" to wildly understate the situation... My neighbors to the south feed the deer, exacerbating the problem even more. No, they don't feed them to hunt them later in the year, they feed them like most people feed wild birds. Those deer have become dependent upon what my neighbors feed them. They even come to the field where they feed them at the same time each evening. SMH. I have counted a minimum of 18 deer arriving to get their handout every evening. With all the milling around, there could be more than 18 deer. I'm hoping if I plant some grain crops in the extreme back end of my land, the deer will be content to graze on that & leave my garden alone. Probably a unrealistic thing to hope for...
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