Southern Region Spring Edibles

Apologies if you are not in the South; but there are completely different plants in the warmer regions.  No rampion

Our earliest Sprig foods all seem to be flowers:

REDBUD is something many folks do not know how to utilize: the tiny, bright pink flowers look like infinitesimal orchids, and are edible; but the big draw is the little flat pods that follow.  Redbud are in bloom now so it's time to start looking!  Many folks have (in books and online) declared the redbud pods to be inedible.  Well, they ARE if you wait too long: they are sweet and delicious when they are thin and easily folded, and mostly a pale translucent green tinged with red.  By the time they have gotten opaque and stiff, they are tannic and fibrous.  So use them for the few days they will be soft: so soft they feel like thin, foldable silicone.  And yes you will need a lot of them for a main dish!!  They are small.  But free food is free food, and if you have a lot of redbud trees, it's fun to do; notice which ones bloomed first and collect sequentially.

SPRING BEAUTY/Claytonia Virginia is everywhere here, in the burbs; entire lawns are covered in pale pink flowers, like a fluffy carpet.  The tubers are never very far underground, and are supposed to taste better than new potatoes.  We have none on our land, despite a rather intensive program several years ago, of transplanting from the roadsides.  Too many hungry digging varmints, not enough cats and dogs running around.  (there is at least one organization scooping up loose cats and dogs here in the South, and after spay/neutering and giving shots, reselling them in the Northeast for big bucks).  People in the States where, back in the 80's, you couldn't have an unswayed/neutered pest are now finding to their chagrin that you will have to pay $100 for a baby kitten.  Some people confuse virtue with other things...anyway, there are just far fewer family farms now; used to be a barn wherever you looked and all of them full of cats.  It's interesting that the same cities that are kept "clean" of vagrant dogs and cats are now having rat infestation problems.  (Boy, I sure get off topic, don't I?!)

WISTERIA is yes, a mostly toxic plant; but so is the tomato, and rhubarb leaves are also toxic.  The beautiful, fragrant, sweet, crisp blossoms of wisteria are the only edible part of the plant; but they are superabundant while the plant is in bloom!  Throw them into a salad, or let. them mostly BE the salad, and enjoy!  You could also candy them as well: thinly paint on beaten egg white and then sift on superfine (not 10x) sugar, leave on a rack til thoroughly dry, and store sealed.  High-end restaurants pay big bucks for these, from their foragers!!  And lest you sneer at eating flowers - remember that perennial plants have superior nutrition because their roots extend deeper and further every year, mining nutrients from far below the topsoil.

And now I'm drawing a blank; what are some other springtime wild foods, food in warmer States/areas?

Wild onions, curly dock, and dandelions are our first edibles.  Blackberries and blueberries are blooming as are the cherry trees but fruit wont set until next month at the earliest and more likely may for the blueberries and cherries.  Cattail tubers should be tasty about now.

Besides those mentioned above, additional winter/spring greens include chickweed, violets, dead nettle, henbit, wild garlic, and stinging nettle.  Then, when the new shoots start growing and the trees start leafing out, there are Smilax and bamboo shoots, and basswood leaves.

Fiddleheads should be coming up soon.

Oh no!  I forgot to mention CHICKWEED; it is so early here in MS it is a midwinter edible; totally disappears by hot weather, but from the first thaw in midwinter to maybe April it is abundant, in dappled shade especially.  I love this plant!!!

Chickweed is a summer plant elsewhere XD

Canadian Onions and chicory.

Chickweed and cleavers, white clover, sheep sorrel.  Forgot about those.

Yes!!  Smilax!  I have a little tip for getting the tender shoots, as usual I learned it the hard way...years ago, we had grass-fed cattle and a billion deer; so I was forever finding the briar shoots bitten off and never getting any of those tender tips for us!  I even got a bunch of PVC pipe and put lengths of it over the cut ends, all over the place; just hoping it would sprout new shoots into the pipes and we would get some.

Now I have learned: just look at the trees, especially big trees surrounded with bushes.  You will see briars climbing up the trees; just grab it and jerk it down so you can get the long, tender edible part at the top!  You can cut it off and feed the rest to your rabbits if you have any, they love it. Likewise, look up the side of your house/chimney/anything vertical. Another great place to find briar shoots is among large (azalea, etc) bushes.  The tender part will be visible; just (carefully) wade in, grab it and snip it off...or you have even have one of those long handled cut-and-grip things they cut roses with, that would really help.

Poke is another edible shoot, usable up to 8" tall; I boil once and discard the water but have read of many more boilings...anyone have a special method?

Smilax family tubers are good too though this way you no longer get the shoots XD

With the overpopulation of deer and other animals in our area, I have taken advantage of big trees and bushes on our old property; they keep the animals from getting at many plants they would otherwise decimate.  I began throwing soaked beans (perennial lima and runner as well as pigeon peas) in among the bushes.  Haven't seen as many mature as I'd like but it is a way of putting a crop where you can get to it but the varmints cannot.  I just like to leave them in there, to drop seed and perpetuate.  It is sort of added Food Insurance, call me crazy, but I was brought up by people who lived through the Great Depression and it marked me as well

Chickweed, Creeping Charlie, and Henbit tops. The bees were enjoying the henbit today too.

Poke sallet/. Poke salad


Is one of my favorites here in Alabama.   New growth boiled in two changes of water it makes a great cooked spinach substitute and one of few wild greens IMO that taste like something from the store.


Thistle stalks are also great raw.    Peeled like a carrot from all the prickly parts.

OK, another one, and this is not traditional/naturalized, except "here and there"...CHAYA.  I have a big potted Chaya in the greenhouse which comes out in the summer; but little ones resprout from Winter dieback in the yard; they are up a foot or so and full of leaves already.  (And Chaya is interesting in that it makes more leaves, the more it is picked; sorta like okra).  If you are careful to buy the less-toxic type (the one they actually eat as food in Central America) you don't have to leach it and discard the water and reboil, etc.  The one I have is edible, they say, raw; but we cook it just in case.  It is VERY good! and they produce like mad all through the heat of summer!

I almost hate to say this because it is another non-native plant; but tindora/perennial cucumber is a very valuable plant here as well, also sprouting back each Spring from last year's fallen fruits as well as from the tubers.  The leaves and shoots as well as the little fruits (while straight and still green) are all edible, prolific, and delicious!!

I got a new book, named something like "Herbalism for Preppers & Homesteaders" - well, it is a joke; the author is just quoting old and even ancient sources and omitting pertinent info; but the thing that really gets me is, it is written for the Northern US and Northern Europe, listing plants we may be able to find sparkly here, but mostly not at all.  And so please jump in with medicinal plants as well, either indigenous to the South or happy here.

Our "problem" in the South is that the "classic" wild food and medicinal plants do not grow well here; they like it cool. Burdock, Stinging Nettle, Rampion, Crabapple, Sugar Maple, etc etc.  So let's work on listing the ones that DO like heat; they are all around us but that doesn't help if we haven't "met".  Anyone grow up using Sweet Gum for a refreshing chaw?  

We have a lot of trees/shrubs with edible leaves, and those are formed but still young and tender now: all of the mulberries, all of the mallow family including Althea & Confederate Rose, poplars and Sugarberry.

In our area, goldenrod deserves a mention as it is not only edible but medicinal; also yarrow.  (But to me, the "edible" leaves of yarrow are unpalatable; anybody ever do it cooked?  You cannot add much, to a salad)

Agastache LEAVES, before the plants flower, are delicious and abundant; Native Americans favored these anise-scented leaves cooked with meats.  You can later collect the flower heads for tea if you like.  I think there is a medicinal application for it...but it's just tasty.  This is an easy perennial here, and native.

Y'all, I have never liked hen bit raw; does anyone on here cook it or have any other fave preparation?