cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/54256317
Hey all,
A while ago I wrote up a massive chart / guide in google sheets for all of the perennial plants I could think of that had a major human connection (food, medicine, fiber, ect). I organized based on their usda zones which aren’t perfect but give a pretty good idea of what things can be grown where. As well as their layer in a food forest, so there’s a different layer for underground rhizomes, a canopy layer, a groundcover layer, ect. It’s shaping up to be a pretty good resource for people planning out a food forest
Anyway I’ve been updating it recently since it’s starting to get cold outside and I can’t work out there as much. Was wondering if people had suggestions for me to add.
Better conversions between growing zones would be a good start. Trying to mash Australian growing zones into the USDA ones is always going to be difficult, but the current map has Sydney and Melbourne in the same growing zone as the Simpson Desert which is certainly an interesting choice.
Canada uses a different calculation all together, and their global map is just wrong for Canada since it’s using the US system.
The USDA uses a really simple system of just using the lowest temperature.
Canada using their own system
And using the USDA system
Looking pretty good! I’ll pick nits because this is right up my straße, but it does work well for its purposes.
I prefer sorting by botanical names, but searching helps. Common names are too woolly & unreliable.
If you’re feeling adventurous in the long winter evenings, you could nerd out with cross references. Have a table of plants buried somewhere that are called in charts of uses, growing seasons, etc.
You could calculate Growing Degree Days with auto-filling Base50 temp averages, or just give GDD info per plant with calculation instructions as the lazier option. Store GDD ranges & info in chart from above. I made a gnarly automatic GDD spreadsheet with home assistant filling temperatures for ornamentals and insects/pathology, but I never really look at it despite it updating every day.
Don’t sleep on dyes, inks, etc.
You were creative in the spelling of perennial and comfrey.
Plants:
- Consider adding Urtica, Papavar, Lactuca, Galium aparine. Urtica dioica is extremely useful for food, medicine, fiber, & fertilizer - the stuff of legends. Corylus (hazel) is good for building and food.
- Not sure why you specify Symphytum x uplandicum and not just Symphytum spp., especially when your link points to S. spp.
- Salix is a fairly big genus, and most fiber willows are going to be in the shrub or understory layers (eg Salix lucida). Willow bark as medicine is overstated, and it is not analgesic, but it does reduce fever if you hate your stomach lining.
- Not sure what Lathyrus latifolius is doing in there - it’s not edible, and I don’t know of any uses for it other than pollinator fodder.
Source: A particular perversion for this kind of ethnobotany & a hort degree program that indulged it (suckers!).
Thanks,
Yea was working on another guide that had a much larger amount of information. The problem keep being that there’s just so many edible perennial plants out there that trying to compile good info on all of them was getting difficult fast. So went over to this format since It’s easy to read / write. Hopefully will be able to go back to the big guide eventually.
Yea I need to put more dyes on there. So far I’ve just put some of the most common ones on there, people have suggested a few more to add though. Spelling is… not my strong suite I’ll admit. I’ll do some editing.
- Will add all your suggestions there
-Not sure either, sometimes I have difficulty on finding specific guides though so I’ll re-edit that.
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Willow is also pretty useful for coppicing / pollarding and is fairly useful for weaving. Need to probably replace it with a few notable sub species like what I did with bamboo.
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Honestly, not sure on that one. My best guess is that I got my wires crossed with Siberian pea shrub / pigeon peas.
