Tag Archives: flatbush

Glad to be Hunter-Gatherer

So the hunting is more about going to Foodtown to pick up some ribs for my partner to smoke (and are they good, and I mean damn good!) but the gathering part I’m also starting to really dig.  Right now I’m borrowing from my very-most-awesome- neighbor-friend the book Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places, by “Wildman” Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean, 1994, and trying to not get the pages too covered with pricey dirt or, earlier today, the really good Sunday Bloody Mary my hunter made for us.

Notwithstanding, I believe I am starting to get closer to the question of whether my three bushes out back (I think I described them incorrectly before as a single bush) are dogwoods or elderberry.  Knowing as you do now that there are three, not one, you can see why this question is ever so pressing, as Brooklyn garden space is premium real estate and I don’t want to waste it with something that might poison the kiddies who frequent the place, or my dog for that matter, nor am I sure I want to leave it if it isn’t behaving usefully, like giving me some tasty berries to make wine or jam, or hiding in its bark the secret cure for hay fever.  Sure, I am getting sold on the idea that native plants are good to have around in their own right and for the simple sake that they are part of an ecosystem that’s been messed with for too long but I’m still not 100% convinced on that matter.  Regardless, I like the thought of eating the stuff in my yard.

It must be on other people’s minds, too, because I found myself in my backyard Saturday in a group of people, all nibbling on these cute delicate little creatures with soft tangy leaves like clover, all trying to remember the name of this same thing that we knew from when we were kids.  Someone suggested ramps (which was way off as it turns out – I know because a good-old fashioned real-live farmer showed up later and went into how they found ramps behind their property in a swampy wasteland but now folks are flocking for them).  Ultimately, we grabbed the book (thanks neighbor!), and found that they were sorrels.  Yummy ones, too!

I’m definitely interested in eating more stuff in my yard and maybe your yard too.  But before I do, I think it would be responsible of me to get a little more educated on the subject.  Toward that end, I’m thinking about taking a tour with author and forager, “Wildman” Steve Brill, author of the book I’ve been devouring (not literally).  There’s one at Central Park on the 11th and another in our conveniently located Prospect Park on June 18.  Just wondering….

QUESTION: Has any one of you taken a tour with Wildman Steve Brill?  Would you recommend it?  Do you know other people doing these sorts of tours?  Any of you brushing off your gathering skills (it must still be in our DNA somewhere), and foraging for your own fare?  Any words of caution?  Words of wisdom?  Any stories of watching someone keel over after eating what looked like an elderberry but was really from a weird strain of dogwood?  Any anything?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt.

SCREEEEEECH!  STOP THE PRESS!!!  Okay, so I thought it would be nice of me to link y’all to sorrels on Wikipedia and when I did, I saw that they do not AT ALL match the description of what friends and I were dining on in my backyard Saturday.  Someone help me out before I kill us all … I will post a pic tomorrow in daylight and let me know if any of you recognizes it.  In the meantime, for those wanting to know what real sorrels look like, here ya go (then again it is Wikipedia, could be wrong?  Maybe?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrel).  I also couldn’t find sorels in my handy dandy Edible Plants book, which leads me to another …

UPDATE as of 8/10/11: they were wood sorrels.  Wikipee was showing me a different type of sorrel.

QUESTION: Does anyone out there have any other recommended sources for checking out edibility of wild plants?  Anything more recent, anything forthcoming?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt on this one too.  Oh, and thanks!

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Update on Dirt Cheap and Three Question Sets

So I went back to Shannon’s, my local garden supply store, because I needed to confirm the price of that dirt I’d been complaining about.  Well, I was wrong – wouldn’t be the first time but it also means I need to make sure I always get an itemized receipt there.  Not that I think anyone was intentionally trying to scam me but I do think I paid for a bag of soil I did not get.  The way it works there is that they ring up your order, then you go and pick up the soil you want.  Since I’m a regular there (or maybe they’re just trusting), they don’t usually closely examine the receipt that I hand to them – just a quick eyeball and they hand me my goods.

In their defense, it is a busy place and they’re quick with the transactions.  Still, isn’t it just good business practice to give an itemized receipt?  I remember when I was a kid in Beloit, Wisconsin.  We’d go to Shopko with my dad nearly every weekend.  He’d watch as the clerk entered each item in the register (yes, I think it was entering it, not scanning it back then), then when the total amount came up – cha-ching – he’d look at each item, counting them in his head, reviewing the receipt.  Then, when we were out in the car, all our goodies packed up and ready to go, he’d look at the receipt again, counting each item thrice.  If everything was right, he’d pull a Fred Sanford, “This is the big one, Elizabeth,” clutching his hand over his heart in homage to Redd Foxx, in mock protest.  If he found something wrong, though, he’d go into mode, his voice dropping a couple octaves and his brow growing into a little furrow.  More than once we kids found ourselves back in the store, with the manager standing next to Dad, reviewing the receipt again, and, almost inevitably, my dad would leave with his wallet just a little heavier than before.

All that aside, here’s a CORRECTION to my previous speculation that a bag of organic top soil at Shannon’s of Brooklyn costs $5.00.  I inquired and found out the following: Fafard Premium Topsoil (Organic), 30 lbs. bag is $5.00 [no price listed on their site], and Hamptons Estate Topsoil (Organic), 30 lbs. bag is $6.00 [also not listing a price on its website – this product is made by the Long Island Compost Co.].  Please don’t take my word for it – go somewhere and confirm for yourself.  I’m curious though, ….

QUESTION: What garden supply store do you recommend for a good deal on soil?  Keeping in mind that many of us (namely me) live in urban areas and may not have a vehicle to drive to pick up a bag, is there a deal that may not be near by but is good enough to bother a friend for a ride, or pay a willing car service to do the dirty work with you?  All of this leads me to another …

QUESTION: Can anyone tell me whether it’s standard business practice to give itemized versus non-itemized receipts?  Why?  Do businesses try to add products thinking the customer won’t notice?  Does a lowly clerk not care enough to bother?  What if it’s a ma and pop shop, and the clerk is the owner?  Do you think people are inherently honest or apt to get away with as much as they can?  Are they just sloppy?  Am I just paranoid?  Did I spend one too many days as a kid in a hot car while my dad counted and recounted our ShopKo supplies?  Or is it that people are no longer careful enough to watch their money, count their change and review receipts?  Have we become sloppy with our money, a hallmark of the credit card generation, and symptomatic of our debt acquiescence?  Do you ask for an itemized receipt when you don’t get one?  Do you ask for a receipt at all?  All of this leads me to another …

QUESTION: Why is it my local garden supply store, Shannon’s, is named the David Shannon Nursery & Florist if it has, as its site says, “been a family operated business for over 30 years by Joseph Perrotta and family.”  Joseph Perrotta, is there something you want to tell your customers?  And, which is it: 30 or 40 years?  Later the site says: David Shannon Florist and Nursery, is the leading florist, nursery and greenhouse in Brooklyn New York. Family owned and operated business for over 40 years by Joseph Perrotta and family.”  David Shannon, whoever you are, wherever you are, how bout you?  Do I smell a story here?

Go ahead … gimme the dirt.

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NATIVE PLANT EVENT REPORT

It was good. Thanks for the dirt, Brooklyn Dirt.

For more usefulness, check out the links below.  The evening started out with a presentation by Marielle Anzelone, who said she worked as a botanist for New York City until about three years ago, and the position hasn’t been filled since.  She gave very useful answers to why native plants are important, though I think the second part of the night, led by Chris Kreussling may have been more pertinent to my purposes, essentially concerning what I can put in my front yard without feeling like an ecocriminal.  I think for my yard/garden, I may hunt down the highbush blueberry and maybe some wild geraniums.  One take-away, though, is that you can’t rely on Home Depot or Lowe’s or even a local garden spot to know what’s native and what’s wise to grow in your garden.  Luckily, Chris promises that his site has a link to retailers who know their native plants.  Overall, it was a one greenthumbs up for the one part of the evening I caught, and I’m sure it would have been two had I stuck around for more.  As it was, I had to get home to a sick kid, and my friend’s kid had to get home to bed.

Sycamore, a flowershop/bar on Cortelyou was good enough to let the kid come along, even though the announcement said 21+.  By the end of the first part of the evening, though, we were all ready to go.  We had a good walk home in the rain.  We kicked around the question whether trying to save our ecosystem with native plants in a little plot of land makes any difference in light of the bigger destruction going on around us.  My neighbor’s son asked if I had a car (I thought maybe he was getting tired of riding on his scooter in the rain).  “No,” I said.  “Well, okay.”  He said it so definitively, like I was on the right track to saving the earth.  Just like that.  He may be right.  Maybe it’s all way simpler than we know.  We also considered whether it might not be better to just throw up our hands, recognize there’s no turning back the clock on the damage that’s done and simply try to find a better way to work with it rather than lament its loss.  It was a pretty quick walk. Only 15 minutes or so … another few minutes more and I’m certain we’d have the answer.

QUESTION(S): what are you doing to make your little difference – in your garden or elsewhere? What do you wish you would be doing? What do you wish other people would be doing? If we could save the world and our little ecosystems by having every person do one thing, what would it be? Should we just throw up our hands and plant kudzu in the concrete? What’s your take? Go ahead…gimme the dirt.

LINKS:  sustainableflatbush.org & flatbushgardener.blogspot.com & marielleanzelone.squarespace.com

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NATIVE PLANT EVENT ALERT

Once again, courtesy of my most very good neighbor: Dirt Talk Four: Native Plants.  Prospect Farm and Sustainable Flatbush are proud to present Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Farming and Gardneing. 

May 18th, 7-9:30 p.m., Downstairs @ Sycamore Bar & Flowershiop (21+).  1118 Cortelyou Rd. (Q train to Cortelyou).  $5 suggested donation (for a good purpose).

Rain be damned, I’m back in love with you, Brooklyn.

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