After the rains, a little clean up and nostalgic weeds.

 First off, the tree...you know the one... the pine in the barrel...

Well it's supported

Not sure who did it but they just finally up and busted what was left of the barrel and leaned the tree against the post. It really doesn't have that much of a root ball given it's size. If I had the money I would buy a new pot for it and put it out there.

The piles of leaves are still in two spots but Rocky was able to follow the path I made for him to get through. Silly kitty.  I finished his walk then went back to check on the garden. Didn't take a picture of the tomato darn it and didn't bring any of my tools. The main branch has grown about 18 inches out of the cage but I tucked in a side branch that was still short and soft enough to bend. The compost pile is composting and the winter plants are growing from seeds and roots from the summer.

Compost stuff

'Weeds'

The one labeled 'Weeds' I have some things to say about. A lot of people see both of the plants in that picture and say 'dandelions' but in actuality the only dandelion is the flat looking on on the left. All the others are actually 'prickly lettuce' and the original ancestor of our modern hybrid lettuces. They get some really cool shaped leaves (the arrow shaped ones next to the dandelion) and then it matures and gets bigger leaves on a tall stalk. They do have a similar looking flower to dandelions but that is the only similarity. Both are edible when picked when they are young. If I choose to let that larger lettuce or the one in the corner get big enough I'll take a picture of it. 

Years ago I was driving on a semi backroad through one of our canyons and there was an asian lady bent over, digging up the tall mustard plants by the side of the road. Oh yes we get wild mustard here as well and it isn't exactly the same as your typical mustard but the greens are still edible. We also get wild fennel along the roads and in the canyons, and sometimes we get what I discovered years later was wild radish. They have lavender, white or pale yellow colored flowers and I distinctly remember pulling one up one time and smelling it. It smelled like a radish by golly so I brought it to my mom and she said no we can't eat that we don't know for sure it's a radish. But... at the time I thought I knew I was right. I have a book on picking wild greens somewhere in my storage collection but here's a picture to confirm it.

Rhaphanus raphanistrum

So it is labeled as a noxious weed in some places and when I was growing up it and the mustard pretty much dominated the two lots flanking our driveway. The leaves, seeds and the roots are edible and again I know because I bit into one of the green seedpods and they were very peppery flavored.

An other noxious weed that is much worse than these is Wood Sorrel, Sour Grass or Oxalis pes-caprae. Another somewhat edible but oh so worse than anything other than Bermuda grass for spreading.

Oxalis pes-caprae

I think it's also called Oregon Buttercup but not sure on that.  This one is another that we used to pull the flowers and nibble on the stems as we walked home from school. There were at least two patches of it on our way and in the spring the tall yellow flowers stood up above the clover looking leaves so pretty.

When I grew up and started studying plants I discovered it is a devil in disguise. Here's how it works: When it's young it sprouts from a previous seasons root and starts growing a new clump, also spreading the roots out more. Once it starts to mature it separates from it's mother root and can survive on it's own. If you kill that clump, you haven't done anything. It will survive in the number of running roots all over and the still viable 'mother' clump. It is extremely difficult to get rid of if it crops up in some juniper or other ground cover, because by the time you see the flowers, it's too late.

I told a customer years ago about it and that we used to chew on the stems, they gasped, 'It's got oxalic acid, that's poisonous!'. Blink, blink..... I can verify that myself and my brothers are all still very much alive and never had any side effects of it. The juice from the stems were almost lemon flavored which is why they were such a fun thing to munch on. We never swallowed the stem, just mashed it with our teeth and sucked on the juice then tossed the stems.

One last 'native/non native/weed' that we also used to suck on was Tree Tobacco. Oh yes... we called it 'honeysuckle' because the flowers are long yellow tubes that we would suck the nectar out of. Honestly I have no idea how we figured out to do that or who told us but it was another spring/summer plant we used to look forward to seeing in bloom.

Nicotiana glauca

Tree Tobacco

These plants can get eight to ten feet tall if left to grow uncontrolled hence the name and the similarity to cultivated tobacco plants. They are both in the same family, note the name 'nicotiana' similar to nicotine. We never did anything with the leaves only the flowers, pulling the flowers off and the sepal cap off to suck the nectar. Another incident of someone hearing what we did and said 'it has nicotine in it that's toxic!'. Sigh. 

I don't think there's any use for this plant though due to it having some nicotinoids and in the solanum family it can be used as a possible pesticide. The reason why you only see it in the canyons is it prefers drier undisturbed areas. Yup, that was my canyon backyard and the canyons around San Diego.

So anyway that's a walk down memory lane that was brought on my the rainy weather and plants coming up. Hope to get out and do some more walking in wild areas to take pictures.