Here’s what you need to know about winter bird feeding, bird food, and creating a haven for wild birds in your backyard during the coldest months. The cold and snowy winter months can be hard for all wildlife, including our favorite backyard birds. For wild birds, the tough weeks of winter can be especially hard, as most food has run out. A reliable source of food from our gardens and feeders can make all the difference after a severe snow or ice storm. By keeping your bird feeders full of the food they need, you’ll find that helping backyard birds through the winter is both easy and rewarding. Winter Bird Feeding Wild birds may benefit from bird feeders year-round, but they need them most in winter. Energy-rich seeds and suet provide our feathered friends with the calories they need to keep warm, especially when food is scarce or buried under ice and snow. To attract winter birds to your backyard, consider setting out one or more of the following: Don't have a good … [Read more...] about Tips for Winter Bird Feeding and Care
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Eat Your Weeds
Common weeds that are good to eat include purslane, lambsquarter, dandelion, wild amaranth., and plantain. Our gardens are at their biggest and best in summer. Unfortunately, that’s the case with our weeds too. Most gardeners will rip these weeds out of the ground and into the trash can as soon as they see them, but consider this: some of those weeds might secretly be a delicious superfood! And harvesting them for food means less waste, less work, and a more eco-friendly garden. It used to be common to eat many of these weeds, but the knowledge was lost in the past couple generations. Today, “urban foraging” is making a comeback, as more savvy gardeners come to realize the waste of perfectly good food. Common Weeds that are Good to Eat You might be surprised at how many of those weeds infiltrating your garden beds are edible. These are some very common edible weeds that you probably have in your garden right now, and all of them put spinach to shame with their … [Read more...] about Eat Your Weeds
Grow a Mini Wildflower Garden
If you have ever thought about growing a mini wildflower garden, you are not alone. Natural-looking flower gardens are more popular than ever. In fact, wildflower gardens (also called meadow gardens) are trending all over social media. Mike Lizotte is the author of Mini Meadows: Grow a Little Patch of Colorful Flowers Anywhere Around Your Yard. He is also the owner of American Meadows, a top source for wildflower seeds including regional seed mixes that make it easy to grow a mini wildflower garden no matter where you live. We asked Mike to give us some tips on growing a wildflower garden—or as he now famously calls them, a meadow garden. Here’s what he had to say. Can anyone grow a meadow garden? Yes, they certainly can. My definition of a ‘meadow’ certainly includes large, sprawling spaces. (If you have a large plot of land, count yourself fortunate!) But a 50-square-foot-patch of lawn or a planter box in a high-rise can also be a great place for a mini wildflower … [Read more...] about Grow a Mini Wildflower Garden
5 Life Lessons I Learned while Foraging for Wild Foods
No one is born an expert—in foraging for wild foods or anything else. We learn by doing, and along the way we make mistakes. As a forager, I’ve struggled to find that essential balance between adventurousness (Hey, I’m eating wild food that I just picked myself, that’s adventurous!) and caution (Hey, I’m eating wild food, I’d better be careful! ). The first, and absolutely essential rule of “The Forager’s Creed” is never put anything in your mouth if you’re not 100% sure what it is. Actually, that’s good advice for life in general. Here are five more life lessons I’ve learned from foraging for wild foods. May you save yourself some time and trouble by learning from my mistakes. Foraging for Wild Foods Lesson #1: Don’t procrastinate I discovered a giant patch of mayapples one August afternoon when I was hot and sweaty and tired. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than a cool swim in the lake. I’d read how unusual it was to find more than one or two, but here was an … [Read more...] about 5 Life Lessons I Learned while Foraging for Wild Foods
Winter Foraging for Rosehips, Crabapples and Wintergreen
The ground is frozen and covered with snow. But you can still go winter foraging for rosehips, crabapples and wintergreen. In fact, winter can be an exciting and productive time to forage for wild edibles. My top picks for intrepid winter foragers are rosehips, crabapples and wintergreen. Here’s the information you need about foraging for these wild winter edibles. And scroll down for my delicious recipe for Rose Hip Soup. Winter Foraging for Rosehips (Rosa species) All rose hips are edible—providing they haven’t been sprayed with something toxic and are growing in an unpolluted place. Plants near busy roads may absorb heavy metals that leach into the ground from vehicle exhaust. So, it’s better to admire them visually and harvest your edibles from a less-traveled spot. Rose hips are a persistent fruit. That means they stay on the plant for months, providing excellent nutrition to birds and mammals (including human foragers). That's why winter foraging for rosehips … [Read more...] about Winter Foraging for Rosehips, Crabapples and Wintergreen
