A Survivalist's best friend is a weed?

I live out in the country and on my back five acres I let all of it just grow, I have those never tried to eat them but I have them in stock just in case.

I have a few plants I don't know what they are I will show later, it will be interresting to finally get a verdict on them.

Thank you for the wonderful information! When I saw your pics, I knew exactly what to look for. /this is the first time I have been that confident from pics. I can't say I spend hours looking at pics but, no matter what I have found , I just was not so confident! I know where to go right now to gather.....

dont let tptb know about these valuable plants, or this might happen...and that would be terrible...

Just in case people don't know, Willow bark is a natural source of Aspirin, and Valerian is the original source of Valium.

Comfrey is excellent for cuts, sprains, bruises, fractures, breaks etc...., but there is some controversy about internal use, as it is related to other plants which are known to cause health problems. I think they are Aconites, but I'm not sure offhand.

Honey is also really good for burns, stopping blisters.
Hurts like Hell for the first minute or so after application, but works like a miracle remedy.

Excellent thread, and very informative.

Thanks OP, and everyone else.

Keep the info coming.

Great thread, and thank you for the information!

Plantain always intrigued me because it was the first outdoor plant I learned about outside a garden, when I was only about four. My mom told me several times that you could make tea from the buds, or stalks as they become. The memory is as clear as yesterday, as I thought back on it regularly enough over the years, but not until reading your thread today did I recognize this much benefit.

reply to post by Invariance


There's a really worthwhile read in the One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka over natural farming techniques which I highly recommend.

At Rasulia we had no human men or or creed. We regarded Nature as our guru. To grow, we tried to learn to hear and observe Nature. We believed that seeking the truth collectively as a community would keep us on the right track and open all doors for us. There were about 20 persons in our group: men and women, young and old, illiterate and highly schooled, mostly very poor people hailing from rural villages. Together we had begun to ponder over the ways in which we did things, particularly agriculture. All of us were skeptical and ready to change.

Entirely through trial and error, in four years, we had achieved the following. The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides was totally banned on our land. This was by no means an easy decision for a farm where earlier large doses of chemical fertilizers had been applied to Mexican dwarf wheat to produce ...

One of the lessons we learned at Rasulia was that the popular beliefs about weeds are false and we should think of weeds as friends, not enemies. When the earth is dug up and exposed to rain, sun and wind it begins to erode. Then, nature's most effective tool to check erosion is a mulch of dead leaves or living plants. It has been found that one reason weeds come so persistently to cultivated lands is because they are cultivated. As soon as we stop cultivation weeds become redundant and lose vigour.

At Rasulia we found that all crops benefited from a ground cover whether it were made of straw, leaves or the right types of living plants. Often, the so-called weeds in fact feed their hosts by fixing nitrogen in nodules on their roots. They soften and aerate the soil; often they also repel harmful insects. We collected seeds of suitable weeds and planted them with our crops to provide ground cover. Wherever I go I advise people to mulch their vegetable and flower plots. If people learn this simple useful habit they can save themselves enormous amount of labour. Huge amounts of organic material will be recycled. Piles of 'garbage' will disappear. 'Vegetable production will increase. Soil will become healthier. Even flowers will be prettier.

Domesticated food plants lose their natural vigor. To continue to survive, they require human intervention in the form of ploughing and weeding. That is why farmers start by ploughing their fields. But there are many other ways to plant and raise a crop. One that we found very effective was to take advantage of hardy leguminous plants such as clover, tur, and soyabeans.

Table of Contents
Contents
Preface by Partap Aggarwal …………………………………………… ix
Introduction by Larry Korn ……………………………….…………. xxi
Translator’s Notes ………………………………………………… xxxiii
I
Look at this Grain ………………………………………………………. 1
Nothing at All ………………………………………………………….. 4
Returning to the Country ……………………………………………… 11
Toward a Do-Nothing Farming ……………………………………….. 15
Returning to the Source ………………………………………………. 19
One Reason Natural Farming Has Not Spread ………………………... 22
Humanity Does Not Know Nature ………………………………….…. 25
II
Four Principles of Natural Farming……………….…………………... 33
Farming Among the Weeds …………………………………………… 41
Farming with Straw …………………………………………………… 47
Growing Rice in a Dry Field ………………………………………….. 53
Orchard Trees…………………………………………………………. 58
Orchard Earth ………………………………………………………….. 61
Growing Vegetables like Wild Plants …………………………………. 65
The Terms for Abandoning Chemicals ……………………………….. 70
Limits of the Scientific Method ………………………………………. 74
III
One Farmer Speaks Out ………………………………………………. 79
A Modest Solution to a Difficult Problem ……………………………. 82
The Fruit of Hard Times ………………………………………………. 85
The Marketing of Natural Food ………………………………………. 89
Commercial Agriculture Will Fail ……………………………………. 92
Research for Whose Benefit ………………………………………….. 96
What is Human Food? …………………………….. …………………. 99
A Merciful Death for Barley ………………………………………… .105
Simply Serve Nature and All is Well ………………………………... 110
Various Schools of Natural Farming …………….…………………... 115
IV
Confusion About Food ………………………………………………. 123
Nature’s Food Mandala ………………………………….. 127
The Culture of Food …………………………………………………. 134
Living by Bread Alone ………………………………………………. 139
Summing up Diet …………………………………………………….. 142
Food and Farming …………………………………………………… 147

This could turn westernized farming right side up again

Download the .pdf here.

Nice find, very informative. I used to have tons of those growing all over my yard at the house I grew up in, my mom just called them "Elephant Ears", but nobody ever mentioned any benefits of the plants.

Sort of random but are there any other hidden properties of Clover too at all? I had a habit of chewing on several different plants as a kid... maybe there was more to it than I realized.

And to go even further off the deep end, is there any correlation at all of these plants (or any other types of nature) being found in specific locations more than others, say... a "haunted house"? I know it sounds really stupid but I swear the house I grew up in was haunted... both me and my sister had several very strange experiences there, and even to this day the place still has a very "odd feeling" about it - about a year ago there was a random fire in the one bedroom that me and my sister experienced a "poltergeist" in.... hey who knows, maybe there really is a connection between the different forces of nature working together...

This is was awesome......and this is definetly the kind of stuff that will keep me coming back to the Survival Forum more often.

I was wonder OP do you know anything about Birch Tree healing? You see one time I got a hold of some of this stuff in a jar a friend gave me from this native guy who made it. It was awesome and I would like to know more about it if you can.

Great Survival Info!

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Thanks for the info. here is a great source www.eattheweeds.com...

It's hosted by a guy named Green Dean. He has videos on YouTube and there is a wealth of knowledge on his site. Thanks again OP

How the hell did I not know this information?

Thanks OP!

reply to post by Northwarden


Thanks Northwarden!
I read about Fukuoka's work years ago and tried to find One Straw Revolution but with no success.
The idea of allowing nature to guide us in our agricultural techniques was very intriguing to say the least.
Weeds save our soil, our water and add nutrients to the ground, how can that be a bad thing?
I had forgotten about the book until you gave the link here.
I'll be reading it soon and thanks again

Originally posted by iLoGiCViZiOnS
I was wonder OP do you know anything about Birch Tree healing? You see one time I got a hold of some of this stuff in a jar a friend gave me from this native guy who made it. It was awesome and I would like to know more about it if you can.

I plan of doing a thread about Birch sometime in the future but I'll tell you a little about it now. Methyl salicylate (oil of wintergreen) is distilled from the bark of Betula lenta, the Cherry or Black Birch as it is called. In Virginia it grows in the mountains so I would guess the growth range is from the Appalachian mountains north. It seems to like shady moist ground. Some may remember Birch beer, which this was an ingredient of.
The essential oil was used for gout, arthritis, bladder infections, aches and pains.The Native Americans used it for coughs and colds.
Before you are tempted to run out and try distilling it yourself you should know that it is toxic and deaths have been reported from use. It's mainly used externally and rubbed on the affected part.
You can make a delicious tea from steeping the bark or twigs in boiling water. It's my favorite wild beverage.

Other birch species have oil of wintergreen but to far lesser amounts. White or paper birch was used extensively by Canadian tribes but I know little about it and need to research it further.

Originally posted by Trower
reply to post by Asktheanimals

 

Thanks for the info. here is a great source www.eattheweeds.com...

It's hosted by a guy named Green Dean. He has videos on YouTube and there is a wealth of knowledge on his site. Thanks again OP

I heartily endorse Green Dean and his channel. The man is as competent as any in this field and his videos are excellent.
That said, whatever you learn from him or me or anyone PLEASE, PLEASE go and verify the information from a good book (or several!) before actually using them in any way. You can seriously jeopardize your health by incorrect plant identification or use.

Thanks everyone for all your replies! I never dreamed a wild plant would generate this much interest. Thank you for all the additional information that has been added as well. Good stuff

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Not that you care, but I also had several white birch trees all over the area where I grew up; pretty easy to remember them, because I fell out of one when I was 10 years old and broke my right leg (femur) in half...

Whether you think there's something to what I'm saying or just think I'm another weirdo on the internet it's fine, just don't let it stop your own personal research.

Another idea to throw out there however, have you ever heard of things such as this?

Through Genetics, Tapping a Tree’s Potential as a Source of Energy

Originally posted by HenryPatrick
dont let tptb know about these valuable plants, or this might happen...and that would be terrible...

Plantain would be impossible to control fortunately.
I love FZ btw, do you have a spare QJ37 nuclear-powered pansexual roto-plooker I can borrow?

We used to rub those leafs (or flowers, can't remember) of that plant and place them to our battle wounds that would occur when we played at the forest as toddlers.

Originally posted by Time2Think
Sort of random but are there any other hidden properties of Clover too at all? I had a habit of chewing on several different plants as a kid... maybe there was more to it than I realized.

There are several types of clover but the most common are the white and red which have been folk remedies for asthma, colds, rheumatism and gout. The flowers and leaves are edible in small amounts, large amounts can cause kidney damage. I really love the taste of red clover flower tea though.

Originally posted by Time2Think
And to go even further off the deep end, is there any correlation at all of these plants (or any other types of nature) being foTeund in specific locations more than others, say... a "haunted house"?

I can see why someone might think that, it's an interesting deduction to make since most "haunted" houses are abandoned so the weeds basically take over the place. But to answer your question, No, plant spirits are helpful to mankind - look at where nearly all of our medicines came from.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


A friend I worked with for four years building log homes, had a lot of thoughts on the matter and recommended it - we've both discovered how backwards it is to unearth the soil and annually expose the micro-organisms and organisms to sun and erosion. This also reminds me to get the original back to him! It hasn't been too long though.

Similar farming practices have also been found to exist in different parts of he world. For instance, all over
North America, Indians planted corn, beans, squashes and other vegetable by dibbling. They did not even possess the plough. No wonder the Europeans found the soil rich and healthy even after 50,000 years of use by the Indians. Elsewhere on the same continent, where more civilized tribes used the plough, the soil had turned to sand.

( - from the same .pdf)

I recall a few things we mentioned in regards to One Straw, he pointed out how weeds and plantlife will crop up in the hardest, gravelly places with no help from man. How many former varieties of common crops have been lost to modern farming, leaving us with weaker, domesticated strains of a handful of select varieties? We used to have hundreds of varieties of potatoes, for example. So if we cultivate back to a more "primitive" method, and reuse generations of that seed, we can populate farm crops again with hardier varieties which will thrive with all the good techniques described. I think it's only peoples reluctance to breach that "impossible!" stage, to look from modern farming to a traditional operation that makes it "unfeasable". After a rough transition, using cultivated seeds, the benefits would be seen once the varieties re-adapted, generations later, to less intrusive farm plots.

I can vouch for the efficacy of this plant against bee stings. Just chew it up enough to bruise it and put the green juice on the sting. Works instantly! Mud clay applied wet will also draw out the poison as it dries. Same for poison oak or ivy.

dang that first plant in the 1st pic looks like skunk plant.

at least thats what we called it as kids.

if you take a stick and wack the plant down it gives off a terrible strong skunk smell.
usually grows here (in pa) around wetlands (creekbeds river beds beaver damn swamps ext)

never knew that stuff was actually useful
hmm. find something new out every day lol

reply to post by maybee
Polk Sallet is not disappearing. But to find it, you have to go where the birds are. For polk to germinate, the seeds have to go though a bird's digestive syste. Look for it along fence rows, and under trees where birds roost. You will have to get out of the city, though. Most people don't know what it is, and cut it down.