Backyard edibles/medicinals

all right I want to show you a good variety of medicinal edible plants you can find in your own backyard okay and we're going to start with this purple one that you see all over here so let's get in close and check it out okay this is our first one we're going to look at you're going to find it everywhere it's in the mint family so notice purple dead nettle okay notice the triangular shaped leaves has the little flowers coming out of it they're they're pink now if you look close at the stem you find on here the stem is square okay all the mint families have square stems so that's going to help you identify it but the easiest thing to do is just look for the plant that's purple all over your yard it's a dead giveaway okay now purple dead nettle the leaves the stems the flowers it's all edible tie and iron and vitamins and fiber okay the seeds are said to be high in antioxidants and if you dry this and make a tea it will promote perspiration which is good if you need to sweat something out if you have a cold or a flu the best thing to do is sweat it out drink a lot of water just sweat it out and they say the fresh plant tea is a good laxative and tonic so that's purple dead nettle and I'm sure you can find some if you're in Appalachia anywhere in that area it's quite common it's real pretty plant but a lot of people want to remove it so just go ahead and maybe use it as an edible or medicinal all right the next one we're going to take a look at this plant right here with all these seed pods on it okay get in close and look at that good like this okay so you don't see pot sticking off of it it's got a little white flower coming in this is the beginning of spring by the way I let my lawn grow out so I could show you all these plants okay if you look down here this is bitter cress okay it'll grow these little leaf patterns like that up the center of them there's there's many forms of bitter cress I think there is another form in my yard actually if I find it I'll show you but this year they are edible the seed pods are edible young leaves raw or cooked if they use the old leaves you got to cook them the seed pods can be pickled I'm not a big fan of pickling things but you can't pick them and they say the roots make a good horseradish sauce I'm not a fan of that either but it can't be done there's a lot of it here and they say the young stems and flowers can be eaten as well there's not a lot about bitter crafts medicinally all's I could really ever find was edible just the same edible properties the seed pods and the stems and the leaves and the flowers but other than that it really wasn't much else so with that said we're going to move on to the next one okay I did find some more tress here right here's different leaves here is the one form I showed you see the difference in the leaves these are a little bit different okay there's a lot of forms as I think there's 150 different species or something but so if I've read the bitter crescent bitter class so keep an eye out for it okay tucked up in back there next to all the metal here is common chickweed okay there is a lot of chickweed here and it happens to be very nutritional okay all parts are edible raw or cooked okay so that takes care of that and I just want to show you a quick thing to help you identify it okay there is look likes some look-alikes but if you pull this apart notice how let me try to get it in there okay watch I pulled that apart now it's it's hard to see right at that tip there you see that little nub that's actually an elastic band okay you can pull this apart okay like that drag it around okay see how that's coming apart like that there's an elastic band on the inside also I'm sure you notice the little line of hair there there will be only one line of hair on this okay only one there's a single line right there you can kind of see it there is not one on this side only on this side okay so that's another key for identifying these okay now additionally a tea can cool you down or it can help with coughs and externally that said they're good for a skin disease to help with like itching and anti-inflammatory issues and mouse there is mouse your chickweed I think I have some of that too it's it's just hairy it's just hairier it looks similar but the leaves and the stems are really hairy but then have to be cooked okay this can be in raw but you have to cook now surgically okay so if I see some of that I'll get that if I see that other form of bitter cress I'll show you that show you the difference in the leaves okay so with that we're going to move on to our next one okay I wanted to add real quick on the chick weed this flower looks like a five petal flower here but it is not it has actually got ten petals okay that will help you identify it's a white flower you'll have ten petals on it I don't know if I can get in that far but they are separated there we go those are all separated and there is ten of them there so that will help you as well to make sure you have chickweed okay so now let's go on real quick I'll show ya here's our mouse your chickweed it's quite hairy we get tiny flowers alright these ones you have to cook look in there for our elastic band and there it is if I can move all the other plants on the way okay see it right there pulling it stretching there goes okay that's Mouse your chickweed real quick for you okay next to all the dead metal here is another family or member of the mint family okay now this is going to be key for you not to mistake the two because it's important to know which ones which but they are both at a bone metal and this is hen bit okay remember that bit okay square stem let me get on this I'll show you the square stem looks like okay notice how that's square if you roll it in your fingers you can easily tell that it's square okay see how that kind of clicks when I roll it that is the same just dead metal it's just right here okay square stem okay now this one here head bit see how them leaves kind of come off the stem okay that's going to help you identify this plant it has little sections like that and then the very top will be like this with tiny little purplish flowers okay they're like a magenta color now these leaves here almost have like a heart shape tool okay now henbit the young leaves can be eaten raw or cooked there's no poisonous look likes it is quite abundant the stems and flowers are also edible and medicinal e it's said to be fever reducing laxative I believe and it also induces sweating so both those mints and do sweating which is good for if you're sick getting the flu cold whatever so be wary of that plants to induce sweating because that is going to help you eliminate taking a pill and you can use this to get rid of whatever it is it's in your body okay so hand it got dead metal chickweed and we've got bigger cress now let's move on to a few more okay Tennessee has a lot of flowers so it's good to use all the key identification properties and this is one of the flowers you will find especially in your backyard probably this is known as a speed well I believe it's corn speed Wells okay now speed wells are not necessarily edible I have not read anywhere that they are edible can get a good look at that flower it took me a good while to figure out what these were but I did figure it out they have a hairy stem okay do not confuse this with henbit or anything they are there is big differences if you look at these leaves the leaves are different the flowers are obviously different notice how they have them lines going through them that's the big thing that set it off for me looking through a bunch of my books okay but I did read just like the other ones these are induced sweating and that's using a leaf or root tea okay now the tea does it said it induces sweating but also help with your nation up from your nation and menstruation okay so so and it's important if you're doing a long-term survival situation it's good to know different survival priorities like that medicinally because those are things that you take for granted that you're just given by a doctor all the time so that's why I teach medicinals and edibles okay but you need to do the research on your own and consult an expert on this and do it wisely like test these things in my new amounts before you ever think about just going ahead and just using it you want to test these before you get stuck in a survival situation because you don't want to have to use those and then make it even worse while you're out there so learn these and test them slowly but surely after you know what you're doing and you'll find it very beneficial and you will learn that you don't fear as much when you go out because you know you know what to look for and where to look for okay now these speed wells are also used as a blood purifier which is interesting because a lot of us get a lot of toxins today and Indians were big on using blood purifiers they actually use like ilex vomitoria which is the gap on Holi to throw up and that's one of the methods of purifying I'm not big on that one but this one seems alright making a tea and sweating and purifying the blood it's also said to be good for skin and kidney ailments coughs and lung diseases so possibly used for that I have not tried this at all this is what I have read on speed wells but there really wasn't much else on them so mostly medicinal with the speed Wells but let's move on to the next one now if you were to let your yard grow out like I did for this video purpose you'll notice you get these little patches of tall growing funny-looking little grass looking things well it's actually wild onion you'll notice that the leaves are round okay it's not like look like grass where it's flat see you just come over here it's it's all over it'll be everywhere okay this is one of my favorite wild edibles because I like onions and I like to use them for flavoring because when I'm in the bush I don't like to bring flavorings with me I'll bring seasonings and stuff but it's always good to have a natural flavoring right from right from the outdoors and this is a good one to know because it's abundant too now these are interesting because you can use a lot of it and it's I mean even these right here alone smell like them and they are edible when when they're tender and young and that's before the flower stalks appear so you can go ahead and eat these up before the flower stalks peeling right now you know flower stalk so these are perfectly edible okay and they are tender they're not to strain you just kind of want to grab above you know the old growth so about there I'm sorry and get up in here so like right there that comes off quite easily substrate it's tender now the bulbs are edible and I'm going to go ahead and use this little one here and I'm just going to dig her up and once I dig it up I'll show you what that bulb looks like okay you don't have to dig down too far if you just have a little like I carry a really small sometimes a plastic shovel sometimes a gardening knife it's what it's called I carry them out with me and it would easily dig this up I'm just going to do this out with my hands real quick and then I'll show you what it looks like okay I took pretty much that whole chunk out now there's multiple bulbs in here okay so you got to collect quite a few to get anywhere near the amount of a real onion but they have quite a bit of flavor in them now these bulbs like I said you can eat them cook them up use them as flavoring throw them with some wild game you got which I love and the cherokees which are native to Tennessee use these bulbs for cold and cough fevers the juice for kidney stones I think there was they used a dose of horsemen I believe before they would do the kidney stone treatment but that's a good thing to know because if you have kidney stones out in the bush and want to treat it find one of these maybe you don't need horseman I just know I read that that the Cherokees used Horseman a dose of horse mint and then they would use these for kidney stones just the juice and then the poultice of the plant for respiratory issues applied to your chest which which is another good thing to use because when you run around campfire smoke a lot you can have a lot of breathing problems that's why I use pine needle tea a lot because it helps with with that issue but onions they just have that potency tool to do that and you can make point mints and stuff with these you know use like you get the essential oil same way I made the bug repellent you can use it by putting a convex lid in boiling water with these on the outside and then the lid in the center catching the drops of the essential oil mix that with some olive oil and beeswax or some towel whatever you can make yourself a little in it this is good stuff right here but these uh these are perfectly edible bust that open you can see that onion right there okay that's the real juicy these are real good I've eaten plenty of them but just go collect a whole bunch of them they're all over the place there's probably eight bulbs in this dirt right here I think there's actually more down on the ground here I can kind of see a few yeah there is so go ahead and get a bunch of them there's a bunch more so that's wild onion I didn't think I had any of this but that is oxalis right there oxalis I'd know is a good edible I've eaten a lot of it you're not supposed to eat a lot of it because it has oxalic acid but so does chocolate and I know a lot of us eat quite a bit of chocolate but it does most of it it's also called wood sorrel it'll get like a little yellow flower or some of its different some of it gets different mountain flowers and different leaves but this is just your regular oxalis it'll get a blue yellow flower and notice the heart-shaped leaves that's how you know it's not clover but they're really tangy the leaves are and they're pretty good I like them some people don't like the taste but oxalis is a it's just a little trail side nibble for me that's what I use it for but like I say don't eat too much but they don't say don't eat too much chocolate so I don't know where you draw the line there that's oxalis or wood sorrel now all throughout here is a whole bunch clover clover is not your top choice for a wild edible but you can use it as a salad or cook green flower tea it's rich in protein ok look at them the leaves are pretty distinct this will be white clover okay there's red clover and this there's a few different species of clover but white clovers are most common I'm sure most of you have seen it but you can soak these leaves and flowers in salt water and then boil them for large consumption because you shouldn't eat too much of it raw because it's hard to digest so just remember that tip soaking the flowers and the leaves and water salt water and then you can eat a whole bunch and I think I think the flowers taste pretty good but the dried flower heads make a healthy tea which there's quite a bit of talk about their medicinal properties even anti-cancer properties how much oh that's true I don't know we don't really try enough of it to find out but the flower heads and the seeds dried also make a flower and it's good to know different plants that make flowers because flowers your most filling food source you can get and it's good to know how to make a bunch of it you know like out of acorns or different nuts or different plants a lot of things can make you flower and it's too early for the flowers to appear right now but like I said I'm sure most of you seen white clover before there's plenty of it and all our other wild edibles floating around it here the Indians use the leaf tea for colds and coughs and fevers like our other medicinals here and then European folk medicine use the flower tea for rheumatism and gout but they say it's cancer preventative like I said and an antioxidant which everyone likes antioxidants today but that's that's clover a good little tidbit information about clover all right now hidden amongst all this dead nettle here is one of my favorite wild edibles that I've ever came across much better than any cultivated strawberry hidden down here is wild strawberries or common strawberries or wood strawberries okay they are delicious much better than any strawberry you'll buy to store they're sweeter and they just taste good okay now I know the story leaves of three let it be but this is an exception a major exception it's pretty distinct it's not a vine growing up a tree it's got a hairy stem here okay it's going to get a little red berry similar to a strawberry but much smaller okay much much smaller but they are hard delicious now these strawberries alone can be used as you know nourishment or for water to cure scurvy which which is huge because a lot of people die scurvy when there's a lot of vitamin C around them already and the berries can be cooked you can use them for Jam let's see the leaves please make a really pleasant tea if you dry them sometimes with leaves its best to dry them sometimes it's best to use them fresh but I've read so far that these leaves are better if you just use them dried for tea so that's pretty much the edible properties of it but believe it or not these wild strawberries have quite a bit of medicinals medicinal uses the root tea can be used for stomach ailments and lung type ailments said to be a diuretic and the root also can be used as a toothbrush that's what the Indians used it for there's a lot of it here too it's growing everywhere I'm excited for when these barriers start popping in they're also here that I've heard the locals call them snake berries because the snakes eat them and they're on the ground now fresh leaf tea is for sore throats they say remember I said it's better stiff use it for dried tea is like just a pleasant tea for health but the fresh leaf tea is said for sore throats or like an external wash on like a sunburn said to be a blood purifier berries can be calming which is good if you're you know say you got bit by something and you had a handful of these berries and you did and you know when you freak out your adrenalin goes and that pumps that poison through your blood even quicker so maybe eat a few of these and they'll call me down I have not tested that theory but I have read that the berries are good for a hot stomach anything like that and you have you know that feeling you get when your stomach's just kind of hurting the berries will help calm that hot stomach down when it's uh when you got that yucky feeling in your stomach and you know like you're thirsty in your stomach just got a lot of acid in it because they are hydrating but they say also the stem can be used for wounds to remove bacteria and burns and scrapes and the leaves for burns and scrapes so this plant you know like I said that fresh leaf tea is good for sunburns it seems to have a lot of good properties for any type of scrape or bond so strawberries got a lot more uses than just eating the berries but that is wild strawberries go pick something here's another favorite which is quite a useful plant dandelion a lot of people know that it is edible it's just starting to bloom out flowers this is the perfect time to pick some greens um the best ones to use for salads are the ones just below the dirt okay just below the dirt down there the best um the right there there's a flower okay see that coming in when they're down there when they're still on the rosette those are the best flowers to eat when they come out those are the ones that you want to pick all right they you want to remove that little white latex underneath it too if it has that white latex on it just pick that right off and they're delicious fried or they're you can boil them a lot of people eat a bra but it's best if you find they're actually quite good served with like butter but the young leaves before flowers appear are the best and all the leaves are edible but it's best like I said just to grab the one below the soil those are the best ones to grab the roots down there underneath this plant are quite useful as well those can be used to replace your coffee okay what you would do is take the roots put them in a slow oven and roast them bake them until they become like a brownish color or brittle and then you just grind them up just like coffee and I want to show you the rosettes because sometimes people get confused with the leaves but dandelion leaves are pretty distinct and you peel all these other there's so many plants here you let your yard grow here it will go into a jungle quite quickly okay notice how that has on little blades on it that's that's key for identifying dandelion okay before the flower gets in it's hard there is a lot of rosettes all over the place and they're one of the harder things to identify so just remember this right here that shape has that Spade at the top then it has them little sections as it goes down okay and that way you know you got a dandelion there are some plants that are similar so you need to look at certain things to help you figure it out maybe look at a dandelion and the one that looks like it in the winter time and then in the summer time come and find out which one's growing dandelions and which ones not okay that's that's one way to help you or vice versa look at it in the summer time you can tell which one's a dandelion and which one's not so then in the winter time you look at them and you say okay that's the difference but they are medicinal here's another one here the medicinal properties of the dandelion include all of them the leaves have vitamin A and C in them which is important the dried root tea can be a laxative which sometimes is important and ly tea leaf tea for loss of appetite fresh root tea not dried fresh for like liver and gall bladder and kidney in other bladder ailments slit-like vice versa or whatever can be used um fresh fruity not dried remember fresh is for liver and gall bladder and kidney and other bladder type elements which gets pretty in-depth but it has been used for that and also for constipation so it's a laxative so dandelion that flower that weed that most people want to get rid of like most of these weeds a lot of people want to get rid of is quite useful and edible and then we have another wild onion throw on okay so we're going to go off to I believe our last one and let's go find one okay this is going to be the last one we're going to look at now there are probably multiple other edibles and medicinals in this yard but these are the ones we're going to look at because it takes time to learn them all and it's important to just learn the basics first and these here all I feel quite easily identified and quite useful and you don't need to learn everything it's good just to know a certain amount to help you with your certain needs now many of you might be saying well I know what that is yeah it's plantain this is narrow leaf okay there's broadleaf plantain there's rattlesnake plantain but this is the one you're probably going to find in your yard okay I will show you rattlesnake plantain I have found some it's quite rare but I have found it so keep watching and I'll show you some more cool plants now plantain is quite useful I have used it medicinally because I have cut myself many times and I know to grab this it's got drawing properties to it it helps stop the bleeding hemlock combined with this is great because hemlock will stop bleeding but this is antibacterial I mean the young leaves are the best because these these leaves can get quite fibery but you can actually use these old leaves okay now you see down in there you see how it's got them sections that's all slice of the fiber you can remove that if you want if you're that hungry and it's wintertime because most of these plants I showed you are here in the winter as well almost all of them are so a lot of times it'll say Oh only young ones but you can usually is old ones if you want to get through the fiber these ones you can actually peel that fiber out and eat them now the seeds it does not have the steak the little stem that grows up the center of it but those seeds that are going to come that's going to have a stem that sticks straight up it's got a little seed then the end of it you can't eat those and they will help keep you regular it's like taking psyllium husk like a fiber the medicinally other than what I told you for cuts and stuff it is used as a leaf tea for coughs and diarrhea dysentery and like bloody I think I've read bloody urine it can be used for which is hey you never know what you're going to run into it's also been said to help with bronchitis and the leaves can be applied as a poultice to your blisters and sores and ulcers and swelling swelling - okay that's what I did when I had my cut I just kind of chewed it up and smushed it on that cut because I did I cut myself with a saw cutting down bamboo and I just quit grab some of this and threw it on there and it healed up pretty quick because that's another thing it's also said to help heal quickly and it has quite a bit of antibiotic properties before handling which is why heals be quick and they say the seeds of these stems lower cholesterol so that's plantain it's quite useful get to know more there's quite a few different plantains but this like I said this is the one you're going to find in your yard you possibly could find broadleaf plantain I don't have it in mind this is actually the only plantain it's in my yard is right here but it is everywhere else so go ahead and look for some of these wild edibles make sure you consult an expert study some of the ones that I just mentioned Peterson has great books green bean at eat the weeds calm he will take care of you he's got more plants than you can imagine on there and he covers a lot of them that are here and that are in Florida and he also has a link that shows local instructors in your area okay he has classes in Florida he'll take he's a great guy to go to when it comes to questions about any plant he'll show you plants that you thought were toxic that are actually edible okay so study up and learn some of these your own backyard you'd be surprised okay I have a good enough

Channel: Rambooutfitters

Views: 99,698

Keywords: plants, backyard edibles, backyard medicinals, surivival, ebible, medicinal, appalachian, weeds

Id: oiwaxGaDkKY

Length: 36min 24sec (2184 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2013