Having spent a good deal of time in the woods collecting firewood for my fireplace and woodstove and today with most of the snow melted, i began to notice the proliferation of sprouting acorns everywhere.
The roots sprout and have already grown to five or six iunches long and about an eight of an inch thick. Reasoning that the rains and snow probably leeched most of the bitter tannins out I pulled one up and tasted it and surprisingly it tasted a littrle like a not too sweet carrot.
A little research led me to this article mentioning white oak sprouts in Mother Earth News along with a bunch of other good things in the wild.
The acorn sprouts are really exciting to me because I now know that with a little work I will NEVER starve in the woods (or anywhere) where there are oaks, even in the dead of winter!
The oak leaves cover the acorns and keep them from totally freezing and dying while the roots grow, insulating them, and they are thus pretty easy to find too if you see oak leaves anywhere (identifying the bark of trees is a lot trickier- at least for me).
My guess is that one of these years it is very possible that these survival skills will be worth it for me and possibly for oithers.
Here is the link:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-a ... lants.aspx
