Brandis Roush wrote:My mom says that if they're orange they're tiger lilies, but I'm not going to go on her ID alone. I'll double check before I eat any of them. What part is edible, the bulb/root?
It's still really early, but we don't have that many weeds. A few weeks ago I was looking for something to add N to my compost pile, and there was nothing to add. I do have a decent growth of thistles now, though, and sting weed, which we try to control because my husband is super sensitive to it (he is just sensitive- he also reacts to grape vine...). Both I have been chopping and dropping. I keep meaning to order comfrey, but it's $$$ I don't want to spend right now when I'm also spending money on chicken housing, other garden stuff... I figure I'll make that purchase mid season when I'm not so financially strapped- I'll be spending less and hopefully getting some income from selling various garden products.
Tiger lilies vary a little in color, from a sort of yellow to a dark orange, usually a sort of bright orange on the slightly dark side. However, there are lots of yellow and orange lilies, especially daylilies. What distinguishes tiger lilies is that they are always speckled with black spots. Also, unless you happen across one of the very new lily varieties that look like a double tigerlily, all tiger lilies are single flowers, never frilly or doubled. Tiger lilies tend to grow as single plants, sort of like an easter lily, but taller and thin. Daylilies grow in luxuriant bunches, though they can grow in more solitary in a habitat that they don't like, like heavy shade with zilch
water. (I have some tall, spindly orange daylilies that do that. A variety I had never seen before moving to this neighborhood. They are still on tall spindly flower stalks in my neighbors' sunny planting, but they do bunch there.) If you have lilies growing in bunches, they are very likely daylilies, all parts of which are edible. An easy way for a positive identification, though, is to take a small section of the clump down to a local
greenhouse or someone in your neighborhood who loves
gardening and ask.
Also, if you don't mind an annual component to your guild, you might try beans or peas as a nitrogen fixer. (Though clover is good.) I had beans that did basically nothing last year except look green and as a result I didn't pick the few pods that did mature. They got dragged across my garden as I was cleaning it up, and the beans scattered. Some got buried, others tromped into the soil and others just snowed or rained in. I have a few that are four inches high and others still coming up all across my garden.
Peas have a lower germination rate around here, but even if you pick most , a few pods left and scattered where you want them next year would make them basically a self-seeding annual. They come in the dwarf varieties, bush, semi-runner, pole, and runner. If you choose a runner, I would suggest scarlet runner bean, for its gorgeous red flowers, attractive vines, heavy yield (pick young for greenbeans) of foot-long flat-podded beans, and beautiful purple and black stripey beans (as a dry bean). Pole beans are the more tender rounder type, or can also be flat, they get about 6-8ft, as opposed to a runner's 8-15ft. Most varieties of beans and peas are cheap and easy to find.
If you prefer a perennial but nonedible beauty for nitrogen-fixing, there are lupines and sweet peas. Alfalfa or vetch are always possibilities, but basically of little human use, though they do attract pollinators and provide biomass nicely. Around here we have yellow sorrel (edible), which I am planning to use liberally as a N-fixer in my garden. They stay short, are a pretty red color, and have the added advantage of not being clover, which my dad roundly despises. They have the nicety of not attracting
bees as pollinators, which is useful for a foot-level garden groundcover.
The catmint and chives and
dandelions are for the
bees, where I don't have to worry about stepping on them.
I am a financially strapped gardener too. I look out for sales, freebies, and gardeners with abundant yards (often willing to share if you make friends first). I tend to buy seed now, since all the stores (not greenhouses, though) have their seeds on sale, trying to clear them out. 10%-50%, later on in the season they'll bee more like 40%-80% off, depending on the store. I keep an eye out for chance blown seedlings and wildlings that have made their way in, in case of something useful (or noxious) showing up. Last year I had petunias randomly show up in my garden. No idea where they came from, my garden used to be solid weed-lawn. Unwanted strays tend to outnumber the wanted strays by about 99>1.
Sometimes I ask around at work and get generous plant/seed donations/exchanges. I take scenic walks occasionally and either strike up conversations with people out
gardening, or look out for stray plants. I don't (of course) recommend stealing, but I have a lovely patch of hen and chicks that originated from a patch that had grown through a
fence and started to keep going into the neighboring apartment complex parking lot. I just pulled off a nice one that was quite clearly on the wrong side of the
fence and only because it was obvious that neither party would care or even notice (an area well-known to me, not to be done if you aren't sure). Seeds are much easier unless they are from a rare plant, because few people will try to save seed from plants they plant right on the edge of their property. If you need to mail order seeds, the three cheapest catalogs I've found are Pinetree Gardens, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Seed Savers Exchange. Also, until you can afford Comfrey, why not dandelions? They're everywhere, and completely edible.
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