breadwoman Hatfield

Amaranth is edible as a potherb.  When it starts volunteering in your beds, let it get a few leaves, then pull it.  Here in MN, we have a wild amaranth called redroot amaranth, or pig weed.  I pull the plants when they are around 4" high, wash, cook like spinach, and eat 'em--root and all.  They are so tasty that I always leave a few plants to go to seed to make sure I have some next year.  If a plant gets too big, I'll pinch off the tender top for the pot and put the rest in compost.  (I don't have chickens.)  Amaranth seeds can be ground for flour and used in baking.  I wonder if a coarse grind would make good porridge?

OikosTree Crops has both.

http://oikostreecrops.com/store/home.asp

The curly dock hasn't been chemically treated.  That is simply its ripe seed head.  Foragers call it a "fifty-mile-an-hour" plant, 'cause you can recognise it while zooming down the highway.  It is related to buckwheat, and you can harvest the three-cornered seeds, grind them, and mix it with other flours to bake muffins, pancakes, etc.

Hello again!  Tansy, aster, goldenrod, birdsfoot trefoil, and pearly everlasting.  Tansy is an exotic, naturalized throughout the area.  It has medicinal uses and probably was deliberately imported from Europe.  There are several asters and goldenrods, all lovely wildflowers.  I often include them in bouquets with my cultivated flowers.  Bird's-foot trefoil is also an introduced plant, often grown as a fodder crop.  Pearly everlasting is one of my childhood favorites.  You can dry it and include it in dried arrangements, or you can make a very nice tea. I've included a link that is useful.  You'll have fun with it.  Watch for fact sheets (not all entries have them) that will fill you in on uses of a plant.  You'll want to explore the links too.  Whenever I am considering adding something new to my collections, I check out the noxious plants list to make sure I'm not getting in over my head.   

http://plants.usda.gov/java/

Hi splitrippin!  Some resources for you:

St Lawrence nursery (z3 new York) has an excellent online catalog that gives much info about fruit tree varieties, hardiness, characteristics, etc.  I print it so I can pencil my notes on it.  A great activity for winter dreaming.  I wouldn't plant trees this fall; they wouldn't have time to get established before freeze-up.  Bareroot planting in early spring works well.  St. Lawrence ships small bareroot trees that may take a year longer to fruit, but will be able to establish themselves well.  http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/

Another good resource is your county's Soil and Water Conservation District.  My county sells tree seedlings in multiples of 25 for use in windbreaks and wildlife habitat.  I don't mind sharing my berries with the birds, and they don't mind sharing with me.  You have to order and pay for them, then pick them up in the spring (March.) You plant them while they are still dormant. They are fairly cheap. 

If you know where you want to put in trees, you could work on preparing sites this fall and be ahead of the game come spring.

Tom has a good point about watching shade patterns when you plant trees.  As far north as we are, though, the sun is in the north, and you wil have a pool of shadow to the south of a tree.  I have trees shading the north side of my vegetabe bed, so I plant leafy crops where there will be shade most of the day.

Legumes (peas, beans, vetch, etc.) harbor nitrogen-fixing bacteria in nodules on their roots.  They are able to take nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use.  Innoculationg the seeds with bacteria at planting time ensures that they will be able to do a good job.  This improves soil fertility, and returning the plant matter to the soil by tilling in, as with cover crops, or making compost is a natural way of fertilizing.  If you grew beans this summer, pull up some and look at the roots. You'll find little knobs on the roots. Those are where the bacteria colonies are.  You can buy innoculant where you buy seeds.  The three sisters method of planting takes advantage of legume's talent;  Corn needs lots of nitrogen and beans supply it. Raccoons don't like crossing squash vines, so the squash protects the corn.

Oh, wow!  I knew those pictures were of Minnesota!  I'm in the same zone, near Detroit Lakes.I'm just putting in some hugel beds this fall, so I can't advise you on that, but I have been gardening in Minnesota for 30 years.  Think about native fruits for some of your plantings.  Chokecherry and pincherry will grow on the edge of a clearing.  I have chokecherries at the edge of a wooded area, some with  a southern exposure, some with a northern exposure. All produce well.  I think they will accept your terrain, so you can tuck them in here and there at the edge of the woods. Juneberries (serviceberries) do well in our area too.   I have sand cherries (prunus pumila) that do well, but their fruit is insipid, so I let the birds have them.

Now, about non-native...  There are apple varieties that work here, and some folks even have pears.  Nanking cherries do well.  I'm planning to get some of the mountain ash hybrids like shipova--a pear/mt. ash cross.  There is a very hardy Van type cherry that is sweet enough to eat fresh.  It is called Evans cherry, or Bali, or Bali/Evans.  My favorite crab apple is Dolgo.  Superhardy, and the fruit has red flesh so it makes beautiful red jelly.

Good luck with your project!

Wow!  I learned a lot from this thread.  Fats in the diet are important.  Back in the 70's they started the warnings about transfats because of the link to heart disease.  Later research is showing that inflamation is a major cause of heart disease.  As ReDeana knows, it causes other problems too.  A major cause of inflammation is an imbalance in the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3.  A hunter-gatherer (read natural) diet has a ratio of 2 or 3 to one. Our modern diet runs 10 or 20 to one.  What to do?  Cut back on dietary sources of Omega 6 and ramp up intake of Omega 3.  Switch from soybean oil to canola oil. Olive oil is good too...not so much Omega 3, but lots of monounsaturaed fats.  Increase plant intake, especially leafy greens.  Avoid white flour and sugar.  Eat whole grains.  Fish is good, if you like it.  If not, go a little farther down the food chain and add seaweed to your diet.

So now you have balanced your fat profile, what else can you do about inflammation?  Anthocyanins are powerful antiinflammatories, and the best part is they are in some of your favorite foods.  Grapes, cherries, strawberries, watermelon, blueberries, red cabbage, purple eggplant... fruits and veggies that have red, blue, or purple color that is changed by acid or alkaline. We put a bit of lemon juice or vinegar with red cabbage when we cook it to keep the color bright. Try rubbing a cut strawberry in baking soda.  Blue! Anthocyanins are water soluble, so if you cook your fruit, eat the juice too. Go looking for other foods that are red or black.  Kidney beans, black beans, and black rice all have anthocyanins. I keep a grape/black cherry juice blend on hand and drink four ounces twice a day.  Skip my juice, and bingo!  My hands hurt.  A note: tomatoes have lots of good phytochemicals, but not anthocyanins.  Research is just beginning to get into phytochemicals, but if you remember that the more color a food has, the more nutrition it is likely to have you can't go wrong.

I'm in Minnesota, a bit far for you to go.   I have narrow-leaf nettle growing on my place, though.  I've been encouraging it, and am preparing to move it to a new bed.  I could send you a division of roots if you want to try growing it.