Free Treasures in Nature: What Can You Find Without Paying a Dime?

[wolram]

What can you find for nothing? I can find mushrooms, black berries and may be sloes.
what other things come free of charge?

 

[Kurdt]

Mistletoe and holly are very common on mainland Europe. My friend has a place in Brittany, and one Christmas they decked the whole place out in real holly and mistletoe. It looked fantastic. There are also quite a few places where they could find Sloe berries and they make sloe gin quite often, which is fantastic.

Firewood can still be gathered in many places for free.

 

[Evo]

Bird poop on my patio chairs.

 

[Kurdt]

Bird poop on my patio chairs.

Now all you need is to find a way of making everyone want to buy bird poop.

 

[Andre]

Now all you need is to find a way of making everyone want to buy bird poop.

Now there is the real Dutch merchandize spirit that conquered the world a little bit some centuries ago.

 

[rewebster]

Bird poop on my patio chairs.

that's just a bonus when you feed them


Mulch--from last years fallen leaves for the gardens (flower and veggie)

Ohh- I found a jelly/pie cabinet, c. 1880-90, in great shape along the street during the local 'clean up' days

 

[hypatia]

Whats a sloe? I can find Strawberries,Mullberries, fiddlehead ferns, wild Mustard, water arrowheads{yummy tubers}, Jerusalem artichokes, apples, crab apples, wild ginger and mushrooms. Plus a hand full of medicinal plants, and the lichen to make litmus.

 

[Evo]

They look like blueberries? I thought they looked more like cherries, but it's been years ago.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackthorn

 

[hypatia]

Then I am quite sure, I have never had real sloe gin.

 

[Moonbear]

When I was a kid in NJ, we used to be able to find wild blueberries, and sometimes blackberries. Sometimes my mom would find crabapples for jelly, but I never liked that.

 

[lisab]

Blackberries...lots and lots of blackberries, but only a few weeks of the year. Some people here (Washington state) gather mushrooms but I'm too fond of my liver to take that chance.

 

[Kurdt]

The Sloe is a type of plum. They're not very nice on their own, but they make a good jam or alcoholic beverage. I think Sloe gin was originally Dutch Andre?

 

[rewebster]

We found asparagus growing everywhere along the roads when we lived in NE Wisconsin N of Green Bay.

Smelt was fun to go after.


snow is free right now

 

[hypatia]

Thanks Evo, what a odd divison and order they are.

 

[Math Jeans]

Tangelos. We have a tree in the yard. MMM MMM MMM.

 

[turbo]

In order of appearance: Fiddleheads, dandelion greens, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, crabapples, apples, and grapes. Our freezers are loaded with free food, and lots of food that we grow in our garden. Of course, fishing is fun and a low-cost way of getting fresh wild trout and salmon.

 

[Math Jeans]

Yes but do you buy your seeds or get them from your plants? Is buying seeds still considered getting it for "nothing"?

 

[Evo]

I don't consider a cultivated garden free food, consider the price of seeds or seedlings, fertilizer, soil conditioners, any wire cages, lines or trellises, if you have a tiller, etc... Not to mention the time you spend tending to the garden.

 

[Andre]

Smiles are free too and comforting encouraging words.

 

[Math Jeans]

Well what about the tangelo tree in our yard? We go the seed from another tangelo, and we never have to tend to the tree, as it is fairly self maintenance.

But one could argue that there is some effort put into anything, and thus nothing is free. It takes effort to smile.

 

[Evo]

Well what about the tangelo tree in our yard? We go the seed from another tangelo, and we never have to tend to the tree, as it is fairly self maintenance.

I would consider your tree fruit free in that case.

 

[Kurdt]

Has everyone been at the Sloe Gin?

 

[Evo]

Has everyone been at the Sloe Gin?

I like Sloe Gin.

 

[BobG]

Prickly Pear and Juniper berries.

They're okay - something you have to sample just because they're available, plus the kids are always interested in learning about edible plants. Although, when my 7-year-old niece gathered a whole basket of juniper berries and tossed them in a bucket of water trying to make gin, I began to wonder if I'd provided her with too many details ... or maybe not enough since she didn't know how to build a decent still.

 

[turbo]

I don't consider the food from my vegetable garden "free", though if you disregard the cost of labor, it is very inexpensive. Now that the soil is built-up and has a high organic-material content, fertilizing is incremental, based on my nutrient test kits.

The previous owner of this place thought that he could garden in this rocky clay using just Miracle-Gro and lime. It took several truck-loads of composted cow manure, peat moss, etc, along with several hundred pounds of organic fertilizer (made from bone meal, kelp, etc) to get the soil workable and get the available nutrients in balance. I tilled in another whole truck-load of peat moss before the last growing season, and found that my plants weren't doing well. I had neglected to re-check the pH, and the peat moss lowered the pH of the soil, reducing the availability of some nutrients, so I had to add finely-ground dolomitic lime to get the pH back up to 6.5. My precious pepper plants were getting yellowish leaves (reduced nitrogen uptake) but they bounced back in a couple of weeks after the lime treatment.

We are still getting fresh garden vegetables, too, though the carrots are about gone, now, and we're down to about a dozen buttercup squash and one pie pumpkin. Those keep very well in our cold (~40 deg) cellar.

 

[wolram]

I think most oppertunities for free stuff are closed up in the UK. like one has to have a license to fish every where but the coast, one has to have a license and permision from a farmer to shoot any thing, even water that falls from the sky onto our land is taxed, ie a row of 20 garages has one drain and a part of the rent is for that drain.

 

[lisab]

The first time I ever got drunk was with Sloe Gin...my friend wanted to make a drink called a Sloe Gin Fizz. You're supposed to use club soda, I think, but we didn't have any, so we used root beer instead.

I don't recommend it.

 

[lisab]

And I used to think it was called Slow Gin.

 

[Kurdt]

And I used to think it was called Slow Gin.

Those pesky homonyms.

 

[Andre]

Sunshine is free, including sunrise and sunset, the song of a nightingale is free too. No fee on the smell of fresh hay or the fragance of thyme. the Stork show feeding their little chicks high on their poles, completely free as well as long legged buzzards displaying their orange tail when flying away into the wild blue younder. Butterflies won't charge anything for visiting your flowers. Noticed the thousands of diamonds on your lawn, early on a cold morning? you guessed it, all free, no charge. Be quick to collect them though. it evaporates quickly.

Also free is the pot of gold under the end of the rainbow. Didn't find it? Who cares, the rainbow itself is much more precious and free of charges, not even VAT.