Grow your own?

[Mike A1]

I wonder if one can eat fire ants.

No but Spinosad can.
Controls many insects - the insect treatment Spray controls caterpillars, leafminers, codling moth, tent caterpillars, gypsy moth, trips, borers, fire ants, and more.

https://www.amazon.com/Monterey-LG6135-Garden-Spinosad-Concentrate/dp/B002BP12LI/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33YJN52T31YV5&keywords=spinosad+concentrate&qid=1682266512&sprefix=spinosad%2Caps%2C397&sr=8-1

 

[barnetmill]

Paw Paws or the poor man's banana

For the first time I actually have some small growing fruit on some seedling paw paw trees. It is one of the most troublesome trees to get to fruit and many use paint brushes to pollinate or hang road kill on them to attract the proper insects. Honey bees do not pollinate, but diverse other flying critters do.
It is not much, but after years of nothing it is great. Only change was I let in a little more sun light. They need some shade when young, but total shade is not so good either it seems.
There was a wind blowing that blurred the pictures. There are still no guarantees that I will harvest anything since many of the critters love them.
In the midwest and Appalachian parts of the country they fed the indigenous, black, and poor white peoples for generations.







Asimina triloba

 

[dennishoddy]

Finding sources of protein should be Job #1 & killing cats dogs, deer even Bugs, should not be something we should be bothered by.
Mankind overtime has used animals for food. What's changed? I'm sure some multi hair colored snowflake will start a movement to save bugs if we start eating them. When your family is hungry any game, is fair game.

I grew up overseas going to farmers markets aka. Mercados. I saw everything that flew, swam or walked for sale to eat.
Blood was not wasted but consumed as Protein & every plant that could be eaten was sold for human consumption.

When you are in a survival situation, Bugs will save you life & that's what you hunt first. A lot of BS being spread about eating bugs.

9 Countries That Eat Cats and Dogs (Slideshow)

9 countries that eat cats and dogs.

www.thedailymeal.com

I've spent a lot of time overseas and down south in the markets. Ate most of what they put out there as long as it's fried, from crickets to snake, to whatever.
Our deer population in parts of Oklahoma, my part in particular are having issues with too many deer. They are overpopulated and eating themselves out of house and home. If there are crops in a field, none survive close to the woods because they are browsed to the ground by the deer. Traffic accidents with them are common. We have had one vehicle totaled by a deer hit, along with a large portion of the folks that live in these rural communities.
Our farms adjoin another very large farm of over 12,000 acres. The biologists at the wildlife department have asked us to help reduce the population by hunting.
In the 14 years since we started the Wildlife Management Control, we have taken well over 700 deer off these properties a little less than half by myself.
If not for personal use, the animals are given to families in need through another program called Hunters Feeding the Hungry. None go to waste.
In the 14 years of taking these deer off the land, we have not even dented the population. They breed like rabbits, so with the great food they are getting from the agriculture in the area as well as the climate being somewhat temperate, they continue to grow in numbers.
With those numbers, the diseases that can hurt them are more easily spread, like blue tongue or CWD.
I'm getting older now, and the days of hunting and trying to help control that population explosion are getting shorter.
My kids don't live nearby to help although their freezers are kept full every year with the deer harvest.
Eventually mother nature will take care of the situation herself.

 

[barnetmill]

each one is a from a different mulberry tree

 

[Bob Lee]

each one is a from a different mulberry tree

Yum those look delicious!

 

[barnetmill]

Of several face book pages devoted to fruit trees, the mulberry page seems to have the most posts because mulberries are grown in many tropical areas and in the old world to about the north equivalent of southern Canada. We gets from the Philippines in local language, Ukraine, Russia, India, and Pakistan. In northern india and pakistan the name is usually like Shahtoot.

The Himalayan Purple Mulberry, native to South Asia, is often called the “Pakistani Mulberry,” or shahtoot in Persian, meaning “fit for royalty.” The versatile and drought resistant mulberry plant produces these delectable and nutrient-rich berries, that have a characteristic deep purple color.

Shah has to do with king or royalty and toot means berry is my understanding of the word.

 

[dennishoddy]

Our mulberry tree fruit is still green and about the size of a pea. Another month before getting ripe.

 

[barnetmill]

Our mulberry tree fruit is still green and about the size of a pea. Another month before getting ripe.

The birds have already robbed the berries off of many of my early bearing trees. My native red muberries and hydrids of them will be bearing in a little while. I am zone 8b northwest Florida. Further north the trees are seasonally later.

 

[dennishoddy]

The birds have already robbed the berries off of many of my early bearing trees. My native red muberries and hydrids of them will be bearing in a little while. I am zone 8b northwest Florida. Further north the trees are seasonally later.

I dread the day when the mulberries get ripe. The birds feast on them and our vehicles suffer even though we are 1/4 mile away.

 

[barnetmill]

I dread the day when the mulberries get ripe. The birds feast on them and our vehicles suffer even though we are 1/4 mile away.

My are planted near someone else's property and not yet bearing as heavily do mature trees.
Below a heavy yield from mature trees off facebook. Some where I have an old russian bumble bee druse bb gun that is semi-auto.


The MP-661K "Drozd"[1] is Russian-made BB pistol and rifle.

Options​

The MP661K is best known for being one of the few (if only) select-fire BB guns and can fire single, three-round, and six-round bursts - although in some markets, such as the United Kingdom, only semi-auto is available.

 

[barnetmill]

Paw Paws or the poor man's banana

For the first time I actually have some small growing fruit on some seedling paw paw trees. It is one of the most troublesome trees to get to fruit and many use paint brushes to pollinate or hang road kill on them to attract the proper insects. Honey bees do not pollinate, but diverse other flying critters do.
It is not much, but after years of nothing it is great. Only change was I let in a little more sun light. They need some shade when young, but total shade is not so good either it seems.
There was a wind blowing that blurred the pictures. There are still no guarantees that I will harvest anything since many of the critters love them.
In the midwest and Appalachian parts of the country they fed the indigenous, black, and poor white peoples for generations.



View attachment 31055
View attachment 31056


Asimina triloba
View attachment 31057

How to eat paw paws