Spring into Wild-Fermentation!

Garlic Mustard, Wild-Edibles, Cancer-Cure, Lacto-Fermentation for your dog and cat, and More! Now is the time of year, when we all get excited about the outdoors! We have been huddled up inside with our pets for months during the yin contractive, yet restorative hibernation season. However, the days are longer and warmer and green buds and shoots are popping out everywhere in this yang, expansive time. It is a GREAT time of year to observe, nibble, and harvest wild plants and their potent food-medicine for you and your pets! These young plants are full of tender, vital energy, Qi, and innumerable, highly digestible phytonutrients. Up here, in Floyd, VA at 2500 ft elevation, we are seeing robust clumps of soft GARLIC MUSTARD, Alliaria petiolata now. The combination of its behavior as an invasive, ecological misfit plant and its incredible health profile, make it the perfect plant to harvest. There is so much now that is tender, that it makes sense to preserve it for use all summer, when it is tougher and all winter, when it retreats to its roots in the ground. It can easily be dried in a solar dehydrator and stored in glass jars or plastic bags, however, I never seem to get around to using it this way, simply because it appears less appetizing dried. It could make a good tea this way, but who really wants to drink a garlic tea. Well, this is where our animals come in. The compounds that this plant produces, is a pest deterrent. Small amounts of this tea (2oz per 30lbs daily) can be mixed into your pets food or even sprayed on her coat to deter fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes, assuming you can tolerate the odor. Alternatively, the plant can be lightly steamed and frozen for later use in your pet’s or your food (up to 5% of volume daily). Optimally, and most environmentally sound (no cooking or freezing required), garlic mustard can be chopped finely and submerged in “real salt” brine in a glass or ceramic container and left to ferment for 4 to 14 days, depending on one’s taste. The longer it goes, the more lacto-fermentation happens, which means greater numbers of gut-healing lactobacilli bacteria, greater digestibility to you and your pet, and greater numbers of nourishing bacterial by-products in the brine. However, it will become more sour, which means it is less palatable or more of a condiment. I have not tasted this particular ferment yet, but packed a quart jar full last night. Read about the edibility and precautions of garlic mustard below. If you do not find garlic mustard where you live, no worries, you are almost guaranteed this time of year to find...