If you are in Southern California, there is native buckwheat growing wild everywhere. See photo below. They make attractive informal hedges and grow nicely between roses. You can also purchase plants for your yard at any local native plant sale.
Now (fall/winter) is the time to harvest the seed heads to make a gluten free flour substitute. (You can also eat the young shots in spring, which have a lemony flavor). One plant can easily yield one or more paper grocery bags of seed heads. See photo below. (They are a little underripe, the dark brown ones are fully ripe and ok to collect as well. White seed heads are too immature).
Once you have acquired your seed heads (we grow several plants), it is time to get them ready to eat. They need to be soaked overnight to get rid of the bitter compounds. Put them in twice as much volume of water as you have seed heads and soak overnight (8-12 hours).
Once they are done soaking, scoop them out into a fine strainer and rinse until the water runs clear. Be careful with soaking water as it may stain surfaces (or experiment with using it as a dye). Once you are done rinsing, it will look like below.
At this point, you can cook everything up wet like a porridge. If you want to keep it longer, you will need to dry it. You can spread in thin layers to air dry or put it in a dehydrator on low (which is what I do). Once it is dry, you can store it in glass jars to use as a gluten free flour substitute. It has a distinct flavor, so have fun experimenting. It makes delicious pancakes, especially when mixed with an equal part of acorn flour (see previous post). Photo below shows after dehydration.
You can grind the flour in a blender to make a finer texture, or toast it before use to alter the final flavor.
will never stop hating the fact that the people that represent california to the rest of the country (the super liberal and superficial influencer hustle culture types) aren’t even /actual/ californians. 90% of them from the midwest or the south or the east coast. these wannabe influencer fucks move here, vote in our elections and referendums and intrude on local communities, then after three or four years they realize they’re not gonna make it and their parents threaten to stop paying their bills so they move back to their shithole midwestern town or they go to texas or tennessee or washington or whatever state is the next fad. so they never even have to face the consequences of their actions.
my family has lived here for a century and these entitled fucks come in and shit everywhere and leave.
Brandy Williams' home garden is a wonderful example of the ways that a lawn can be transformed into a habitat for pollinators, as well as a space to experiment and be creative. Visit this garden along many others on our Native Plant Garden Tour April 23-14, 2022.
Tickets: http://nativeplantgardentour.org
LA Times | Her stylish gardens are filled with native plants. Come visit one in South L.A.