I'm a eat the weeds/use the weeds for medicine kinda guy. One of main areas of interest is looking around my property at all the things the Lord has put there for the service of my dominion over it. I wanted to start a thread to show you guys some of the many plants that grow

wild around here from which you can benefit either in the kitchen/medicine cabinet. When I get a sec I'll explain this guy. For now, it is broad leaf plantain. If you're in North America and you have a yard you have this in your yard. You want it there. More to come.

Disclaimer: act like a grown up and dont just jump into something someone like me recommended in the internet without researching. Ok. Broad leaf plantain. BLP is an excellent plant. Before the leaves are very old (they'll turn darker) they're perfect for a snack, or in a salad.

At first taste you'll think ok, I'm eating some grass, but e'er long you'll notice a distinct mushroom flavor (it comes right after you think "Basil lied, this doesn't taste like mushroom"). The leaves are very nutritious. Once they're older/darker the leaves are an excellent

cooked green. I'll use then 50/50 in any cruciferous green. They're really worth the timeit takesto find enough. The seeds are also tasty. Tasting muchlike the leaves but with a much milder flavor, if you get theseeds right as they're perfectly removed by squeezing with one

hand, and pulling the stem through your fingerswith theother, you get a snack even better than fresh, ripe millet berries. To add to all of this, the crushed, dampened leaves are a useful poultice for minor burns/scrapes/cuts but even moreso for rashes. There are

quite a few articles on the nutritional and medicinal value of this plant. Look them up. It's worth your time. Next up, pokeweed.

Pokeweed is a ubiquitous "noxious weed" for most of this continent. If you used to be a kid, you likely used poke berries as skin paint and got scolded because "those berries are poisonous". First off, the entire plant is poisonous mostly owing to phytolactin but the berries

are nearly empty of this poison except for in the seeds. If you want to try a berry that tastes ok this one is for you. They're not great, they're only sometimes gross, but as long as you spit the seeds they're viable snacks. I've heard of people removing the seeds and making jam

and I've heard of people using the berries to deepen the color of wine without much altering the flavor, but this plants usefulness isn't in its beautiful false grapes. It's poison is what I'm after. Every year I dig up a section of the roots of a particular pokeweed plant

that's been growing for who knows how long. The roots of these guys can get as big as a small car which is why they are so hard to kill. I'll cut off a section of roots roughly the size of my forearm (I'm an average size dadbod owner) and peel then petite dice it. That can be

difficult because the roots are stronger the older they are. I try to go with new growth if available . Anyway petite dice the root and throw it into a glass jar and pour gin over it until no poke cubes are exposed to the air. Set it in a closet and forget about it for 8 weeks.

It won't ferment, it doesn't need a release vale. After 2 months pour the liquid into another glass container and toss the root chunks somewhere that your chickens won't be able to eat them. This new medicine has many applications that I'll share when I get a bit more time.

Ok. Pokeweed tincture. So this tincture is a multiuse drug. I take 2ml/day for a condition very similar to rheumatoid arthritis. I haven't had a flareup in years. It's a potent antiviral, antibiotic, antifungal. It's said to be capable of killing HIV. I believe it could.

It has killed warts, ringworm, and athletes foot in our house alone. We've seen it knock out cold and flu when we've had it, and seemed an effective prophylactic when we were for sure exposed to people who were sick. Now, this medicine is POISON. A minor overdose will suck

bit it's nothing to worry about. You'll feel strange (best description I can offer) and you might have to stay near a toilet with a bucket in hand. Read up on the benefits of pokeweed tinctures. Next plant will be mullien, and then I'll do wild nightshades.

I haven't abandoned this thread. Today was my wife's bday so I tried to stay mostly off of here.

Ok. Mullien. This stuff isn't native but it's everywhere you see rocky, disturbed soil. I've never eaten it, but since the little furry bits can irritate skin I don't want to try it. This guy is an important medicine plant for fools like me. It's growing now in TN

But it's not as young as the first pic and not as old as the second. This guy's leaves are dried and then smoked (in a pipe so there's no paper smoke) for relief of lung irritation and bronchitis type stuff. It works. I even almost got arrested last winter searching for it

in a recently flattened area next to a grocery store because I "fit the description of someone stealing from cars in store parking lots." Look this plant up. Then find it growing somewhere and dry it out.

Better late than never. Ok so now we're on to local, wild nightshades. Most of them are in the Solanum family but one isn't. We'll start with him. Physalis, aka ground cherry, aka Inca berry, aka pineapple tomatillo is a lovely invasive weed here. When ripe they taste much like

a...pineapple tomatillo. The berries, when ripe don't get even as big as a grape tomato, but left unmolested a plant will yield a LOT of berries. These are so good that you'll understand why finding them RIPE is almost a nonoccurrence. They aren't terrible green, but they're so

good ripe that they'll be left alone by ago that eat them until THE DAY they ripen (which they won't do on off the plant). As soon as they're ready they're snatched by every wild tomatillo eating beast. I grow them by my house and that still doesn't protect them completely. Next

Solanum Nigrum. This guy is my favorite 100%. I plant about 100 seeds a year for this guy.

It had occurred to me that maybe I'm not on here enough to make a thread in real time. Though I'm still intending to finish this thread after 20-30 more plants, I think that if there is a next time, I'll work on it in the draft folder and then post it all at once.

Later on tonight I'll getinto solanum nigrum aka black nightshade.