Wild Edible Plant - Onion

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Mitch, Mitchell, Alone, History, Channel, Survival, Nativesurvival.

Tags: native,survival,edible,plants,food,greens,onion,spring,wilderness,bushcraft,hand,drill,bow,friction,primitive,fire,outdoor,hunting,fishing,outside,hobbies,outdoor recreation,shooting sports,shooting tips,hunting tips

Video Transcription

hey speech today survived all just driving down the road and found some wild onions caught my eye stay tuned alright so there's a few ways you can very quickly identify wild onions when you move them by I mean you know even when I'm in the car you know if I'm able to identify onions when I'm driving by you know like 40 miles an hour then obviously I can see it extremely easily when I'm just walking through the woods so this is how I how I identified so quickly you'll notice that on other common like growth like grasses and things that the color is much lighter green

then it is on ions so onions a darker green another thing that makes it easy is that grasses like to grow flat in their cross-section you see in all these I just took a couple different clumps they like to grow flat even the ones that seem like they're not they still are

okay now if you look at while longing it grows round in cross-section it's like a tube alright that's a second way third way is the top now it likes to when it gets a little older likes to curl at the top and kind of do like a little squiggle I hope to see if there's anything here that really does that very well this one's starting to you know it just kind of has like there's another good one right here it's very interesting growth of the top we're just kind of like bends over and kind of doesn't look like a squiggle thing going on so it's kind of s-she kind of squiggles towards the top it grows kind of strangely at the top as you can see whereas other growth like grass they tend to be stiff at the top they don't they don't bend and get all squiggly and esters like that second or third way now another way is that when these grow these wild lemons grow they grow in a tight dense cluster like this

so when they're growing they're very very tight and they're you know kind of swaying in the wind it's like one piece basically and they have a good amount of rigidity because of their cross-section so they don't sway easily so they kind of grow pretty upright overall except for the bent tops of strange Topsy grow pretty upright pretty dense you know all pretty much right on top of each other darker green in a circle cross-section and these like really dense clusters you know they don't grow a bunch of different blades making up a carpet like grass does they kind of like these like little spikes

whereas grass obviously when it grows even if when it is in clumps it's pretty pretty separated and when it blows it kind of just like blows everywhere so those are the main ways that I use to to notice wild onions from a distance I mean even when driving all right so that's what I'm talking about we have grass right here kind of these big blades loosely bunched now when you look up here there's the wild onions I mean just a completely different growth pattern darker green standing up straight that's the difference between the two grass down here wild onions right up there okay so this is what we're looking for smells deliciously like onion right so let's go harvest something all right so this plant is a little bit off the roads aways not right alongside the road so we're going to harvest from this one I want to just make a quick digging stick to make that easier pretty simple smells good too all right so exposing this plant here we go

okay now

he's my digging stick and I'm going to dig all around see if I can exposed those root balls nature actually provided this digging stick it's even better than the one that just broke off just find a laying here that's a nice watch shape to it excellent

so I like to start further back and work work my way towards the plants I don't want to damage it like to use a technique where basically you dig and then you take out the debris that you loosen up at the same time actually bate very quickly that way okay get some roots and stuff down there I'm gonna go around the plant keep doing the same thing what I gently pull the dirt away from the plant into the reservoir created obviously I'm not going to take all of this plant and take a couple and I'll leave it rest now if I wanted to get more I'll just take more from a different plant a different cluster of them okay so now I'm starting to separate this bunch from the rest of the cluster by digging behind these still some roots down here to get rid of now I'm starting to get towards the bulbs at the bottom I can see the sheets right there it's going to be real gentle okay so here's the first one and grab another there's another one is the sheath I was talking about that's on the roof nice bulb at the bottom use it pretty close to coming up as well just stick around there's another one and another one okay so I'm gonna continue like this grab a few more and I'll get back to you all right so as you can see there's a lot of food here and there's still a lot in this one clump all right so now what I want to do is make sure that I take care of this clump that just took care of me pretty simple all that dirt that I took out I'm gonna put back lightly tamp around it so it's strong again alright now I'm gonna hold it up put everything back where it was I was around it it's a root in there there okay

I'm gonna hold this up take all this debris and everything and put it back as a plant obviously liked it or wouldn't have been here right so I'm gonna put everything exactly how it was so the plants happy again it wants to be here it likes being here I disturbed it now I'm gonna put it back how it was okay so now this plant is still gonna be growing here I didn't just take all of it and because it's still growing here if I'm hungry tomorrow or next week or next month I can come back take a few more by then I'll have made a few more and I'm good to go

you know if I'm hungry tomorrow I'm not gonna take from the same plant if I have more to take from I'll just go to one of the other plants in the area and then you guys saw this tons of them and I would just take from that one in the same way I took about 30% from this one and I will just keep doing that and by the time I got back to the first one it would have already grown a whole bunch more okay and that's that's really a key concept to understand on living properly with plants on living in a long-term long-term basis with plants you know you don't find a resource and take it all because we won't be there tomorrow right so it's incredibly important to think ahead because it's very short-sighted and foolish to take all of a resource because then you won't have any for tomorrow and by also taking all of a resource there won't be anything left for the animals that are relying on this resource as well because if we decide to eat animals as well then we're gonna want to not take their food away either so you want to be smart and only take a portion so then that way there's still a portion left for the plant to continue and a portion left for the animals to eat so they stay here so we don't get rid of that resource so they're not gonna leave the area so we can live here the animals live here and the plants continue to live here alright so I got them on my old rucksack table here on my favorite uses of my rucksack what am I actually using it on my back pretty simple

just gonna clear up the dirt now just like

agriculture onions

these growing layers so if I want I can pull off layers like this and it's obviously very clean underneath see that that's another option for cleaning them off as you don't do that it's wasteful alright that's chief that each layer is food you know you keep clean and keep cleaning and all sudden there's often left crazy so I really just wipe the dirt off now when I eat these I usually eat the root stems - I think it's also incredibly wasteful

to cut off portions that are not the perfect cut if you know what I mean you know the perfect the perfect piece would be cutting this off cutting this off peeling off some layers and just eating the heart of it oh that's the most delicate part right well each part of the plant has its own vitamins and minerals and it's incredibly wasteful to not eat a portion of an of a plant and eating a different portion because you like it better you know it's crazy you should be eating all of it so I'm gonna go ahead and just prep one of these to be to eat here and I'll get back to you all right so I've got one here done my best cleaning off pretty good you push down the roof wall you notice that you can

clean off inside the root ball as well all the way to the bottom of the plant it's called the apical meristem very special part of a have a plan anyways okay so this one I harvested is much much further off the road than the others still gonna have some crowds going by because you know I'm still pretty close to the road it's probably I don't know maybe 25 30 yards something like that the moles there you go man I love the way this stuff smells you know okay so you can eat this tons of different ways and I'm gonna jump on it raw again it's an onion it's gonna be pretty strong good stuff here's the bulb blow it

you see thunder incredibly delicious as a nice bite to it you know cuz it's none you hit that yeah good stuff a little left here this will be an event now real food love it you know it's a lot of food there and I still have all this from that one much now I only took my my equal portion you still punch there all right delicious okay so let's pull our book out all right

we want to turn to page 114 okay we have wild onions see here it's just what the flower looks like a little cross section right there Circle okay so while onion

basil leaves small odor of onions all pretty standard stuff right all species edible cooked vegetable salad seasoning cooked green obviously raw the bulbs are excellent boiled pickled added salads you should use the seasonings and obviously the good raw too ok so some of the stuff is pretty easy you know seasoning would be as say a rub that you use on fish something like that conic what I did with the wintergreen I did a wintergreen rub will still be an onion rub on fish or whatever the case is before you cook it obviously seasoning just like leaf onion powder that you can buy in the store the agriculture same deal you know you try it out are you hanging up it tries out you make like a flower out of it and once it dries you smash it up if it's so brittle it just powder eise's there's your seasoning right and we cooked green salad you know pretty standard stuff you know either boiling it or or you know roasting it lightly or frying it on a rock I mean you know tons of ways to cook onions you know we all know that salad you know cook vegetable it's all kind of the same so it's a great edible because it can be eaten raw and it just tastes awesome it can season other foods especially meat you can eat it in a salad whatever the case is you can steam it you can boil it you can fry it you know phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal plant alright so as you can see it's easily identifiable and I noticed it when I was driving by today appreciate your views common sport take care a good day you

About the Author

NativeSurvival

NativeSurvival

Mitch is a Wilderness Living Skills Instructor, he has been featured on The History Channel's program "ALONE" and written articles for Outdoor Magazines; he owns and operates The Native Survival School which provides woodland living and survival classes, as well as offering quality outdoor gear he's designed. Defintely, he is a master at bushcraft's techniques.

You can find all his videos on his YouTube channel.

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