There are truly amazing benefits to cattails. They are high in Manganese, Vitamin K, and Magnesium. The roots ground into powder to provide a high protein flour for your favourite recipe.
Manganese supports bone health, reduces blood sugar, aids in the formation of blood clots alongside of Vitamin K, and helps the body form superoxide dismutase, an anti-oxidant enzyme which may indeed reduce inflammation related to inflammatory bowel disease for instance according to Medical News Today.
Healthline reports that magnesium is essential to facilitate the biochemical reactions taking place in your body. These include energy creation, protein formation, prevent depression, gene maintenance, mitigates Type-2 diabetes, aids muscle movements, prevents migraines and aides in the regulation of your nervous system.
There is a very easy way to forage for your cattail roots according to Northern Woodlands is by baking the roots in the oven under a slow oven about 200 degrees Fahrenheit to let them dry overnight. Then place the roots into your coffee grinder or use your mortar and pestle to create a fine high-protein flour. This flour is wonderful to use as a gluten free thickener, or to make pancakes for instance. Just reach down, and remove the connecting rhizome between two cattail plants. The outside layer of the rhizome is spongy, and not great to eat. Just peel your rhizome like a banana peel separating the outer layer with your thumbnails, remove it and you should be left with core.
The Farmer’s almanac says that to “prepare a cattail root, clean it and trim away the smaller branching roots, leaving the large rhizome.” A great means to clean your cattail harvest is to rinse, then soak in vinegar for a few minutes, then rinse again.
There are two choices in using your newly harvested cattail roots.
You can bake the roots in the oven under a slow oven about 200 degrees Fahrenheit to let them dry overnight. Then place the roots into your coffee grinder or use your mortar and pestle to create a fine high-protein flour. This flour is wonderful to use as a gluten free thickener, or to make pancakes for instance.
Markus Rothkranz believes that God wants us all to be healthy and happy and so has given us free foods and medicines all over the planet. As he points out, there will be wild plants we can eat and others that will make us well, growing outside where we live and in our neighbourhoods.
Alternatively, you can peel the fibers away, and eat the tender root. Parboil your root, and then grill with a sauce made from your favourite salad dressing!
Send us a comment on how you succeed with your foraging adventure! Stay tuned throughout tourism week for more Cattail recipes for your outdoor foraging foray. Remember to be safe around the water. Try not to forage cattails with puppy dogs in tow during the spring nesting season. Audubon mentions that the Pied-billed Grebe “nests are unusual too – little platforms of plant material that float on water, hidden behind vegetation. …Martin Muller, an expert who loves unravelling the mysteries of Pied-billed Grebes: “Well, there’s the nest…there it is! We didn’t even see it because we were standing on the wrong side of the cattails, so if we step back a little bit…without the bird seeing…us directly staring at it, it’ll carry on.”
Today, during Tourism Week across Canada! We agree with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC), that “We encourage all Canadians this #TourismWeek, to take the pledge, and when you are able, plan and travel in Canada this year!“ Why not venture out to the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas, and enjoy Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area or George Genereux Urban Regional park. They are great places to socially distance in 326 acres and 147.8 acres respectively.
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mold myself.
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date! Canada Helps
““Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven..”
Richard St. Barbe Baker
Many more people are becoming interested in foraging and are going out looking for free wild foods. This puts them in touch with nature and with ways of the hunter-gatherer our ancestors were long, long ago.
Today, the Sunday of the long weekend of May marks the beginning of Tourism Week across Canada! We agree with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC), that “We encourage all Canadians this #TourismWeek, to take the pledge, and when you are able, plan and travel in Canada this year!“
To that point, we encourage you to have a “staycation” at Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area or George Genereux Urban Regional Park in Saskatoon! In 326 acres, and 147.8 acres, there is lots of room to socially distance, and enjoy the mixed woodlands, meadows, wetlands and wildlife.
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For an activity, this spring, the spikes or stems are amazing to eat, as are the roots, and the pollen-covered cattails heads are also wonderful. Off the Grid News recommends that after harvesting your cattails, to rinse, them at home, and then soak in vinegar for 10-15 minutes, and then rinse again. The little shoots make a delightful spring vegetable to eat with your favourite dip!
Don’t forget to try the Marinated Cattail Hearts recipe. Right now is the best time to forage for your cattail leaf hearts. You may want to wander out to the wetlands with a pair of rubber boots on for the best and tastiest morsels. This delicious Marinated Cattail Hearts recipe makes a divine relish that is very delicious.
Send us a comment on how you succeed with your foraging adventure! Stay tuned throughout tourism week for more Cattail recipes for your outdoor foraging foray. Remember to be safe around the water. Try to forage for your cattails without puppy dogs in tow as spring is when waterfowl are nesting. Pied-billed Grebes, for instance, “build floating nests of cattails, grasses and other vegetation…..look for Pied-billed Grebes on small, quiet ponds and marshes where thick vegetation grows out of the water.” Cornell University All About Birds.
Foraging for food is a little like a mythic quest. You may think you know what you want and expend a lot of energy and dogged determination making lists and plans for obtaining it — losing a lot of sleep and garnering no small amount of heartache along the way — only to find it shimmering elsewhere, like a golden chalice, just out of reach.
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date! Canada Helps
““Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven..”
Richard St. Barbe Baker
Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.
Introducing Vertical Forests and Façade Greenscapes
So recently discussing the nestling of naturalized settings in an urban setting such as the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, and the George Genereux Urban Regional Park of the city of Saskatoon a question came up regarding the long range planning of areas in the city. The question was; what exactly is a vertical forest?
Green roofs, façades, and walls, are amazing, aesthetically pleasing, and have a huge positive impact on the environment and your pocket book. A stunning and exquisite living roof or ecowall is nothing but a dynamic expression of health, well-being, life, and movement. Texture, pattern, and fragrance with eco-architecture unite and network businesses and customers, inspire families, and network neighbourhoods. The University of Saskatchewan is implementing a number of green roofs, starting with the College of Law, and residential property owners are initiating their own practices of green roofing.
musée du quai Branly y Paris Courtesy Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Living walls and roofs definitely contribute to environment quality and ensure that the home or building owner plays a key part in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). It is without doubt an unequivocal, and irrefutable the wonderful environmental footprint when an eco wall or roof makes an impact on energy efficiency.
Zachary Smith says, “Living walls are visually stunning, yes, but there is much more than meets the eye…[they] promote the positive effects that plants have on individuals’ mental and physical wellness, a key benefit in and of itself.”
These green spaces implemented on buildings such as shopping centres, civic architecture, and private homes provide real, definitive health and well-being benefits. Green buildings add value to the property as well as providing environmental benefits.
A green roof can be an “Ecoroof” requiring minimal maintenance, or it may be a “roof garden” or “podium roof” offering higher variety, and access to people. Can you imagine being a restaurant or lounge owner, and bringing in customers to experience your podium roof? This unique setting could provide recreation, or an amazing amenity featuring additional space for bars, restaurants or cafés. What a drawing card. Can you imagine being The Premier Venue folks choose for graduation and wedding parties, as your living wall becomes the backdrop for the wedding photographs, and reception.
Ronald Lu & Partners Green Wall, Hong Kong 2010
Living walls help nurture the patient in health care or the employee in a business setting. Nature is known for its positive effects on creativity, performance and productivity in the work place. Similarly eco walls foster a healing environment reducing time spent in hospitals, and reducing the patients reliance on pain medications. Hospitals, and care homes both have greater well-being among their residents and patients, staff have a reduced workload and higher capacity to provide satisfying care.
A home owner can establish another garden upon the roof growing edibles or just have an amazing private get away for a relaxing “Staycation”.
Green walls, living walls or vertical gardens on the other hand, increase the buildings insulation creating their own micro-climate, and improving the air quality around the building. The amazing thing to consider is that living walls can be established inside or outside. Another one of a kind concepts for skyscraper developers is integrating “Vertical farming” into their design. This feature would provide residents with salad greens, herbs, and fruit, while landlords would realize reduced energy costs. It would be a “win-win” situation.
Kitchener Ontario Children’s Museum courtesy M. Rehemtulla
A Vertical Greenery System (VGS) is mostly developed for aesthetic, environmental and economic benefit regardless for commercial groups or public individual. The foremost benefit of VGS based on last five years studies are thermal reduction, shading and cooling effects, energy efficiency and saving electricity cost Apart of that, VGS acts as acoustic insulation, air filtration, carbon sequestration, biodiversity preservation and increasing property values. (Source) This scientific study has delved into the impact of Vertical vegetation, and the carbon sequestration potential for climate change mitigation.
“Urbanization has led to many environmental issues such as climate change, global warming, urban heat island effect, air pollution, soil and water contamination, floods and acid rain. The contribution of cities and buildings to greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions and energy consumption accumulates over their lifecycle from conception (material collection, transportation, soil excavation, site clearing, etc) to construction (production, transport, distribution, etc), through usage (waste, electricity, energy consumption, maintenance, refurbishment) and finally demolition (disposal, waste). The construction industry has a vital role in creating a more sustainable built environment, and emerging from this realization are niches categorized as sustainable architecture, ecological architecture, climatic design , energy-efficient buildings, green architecture, green building, and sustainable property development” (Source)
A separate method of greening a residence or building is via green façades. Many people may think of a green façade as a partition proferring shade from the sun or as a privacy screen. This may be the simplest, incorporating climbing vines or hanging gardens.
Hybrid living walls incorporate ideas and systems from both green walls and from green façades, a merger of the two, if you will.
Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana Mexico Courtesy Thelmadatter
Are there cost savings and financial benefits? $$$ Business owners can be assured of an increase in customer traffic, as their building is a point of interest and a landmark for people to come and see. Home owners also see a savings to their finances as a green roof will last between 30 – 50 years. (Source) A typical asphalt roof in comparison will last only 15 years in our arid climate with temperature swings between +40 to -40 Celsius. (Source) A green roof or a green wall, reduces the impact of temperature fluctuations on the building due to its unique micro-climate.
“Garden walls contribute to healthy communities, and can serve to introduce green space where ground level landscaping is hard to come by. Plants in communities are linked to a number of benefits, including reduced crime rates and increased civic participation.” (Source)
University of Ottawa Social Sciences Building courtesy Jon Kolbert
“As the vertical assemblages of plants found on living walls are not commonly found in nature, this gives the opportunity to create a complete new ecosystem able to thrive and develop in cities. Recreating and supplementing threatened habitats within a city setting offers new avenues for conservation. Working on green walls in urban settings is an emerging area of ecology; exploring the functionalities and the possibilities of green walls, and especially living walls, should not be constrained by conventional conservation paradigms. “Source
Rainwater is absorbed by all green spaces, managing the stormwater run off. To help manage the bio-roof, the addition of a cistern would aid the vegetation. (Source)
Both the heating and cooling bills are reduced for the store or home owner. Air conditioning bills reduce in the summer, and the wear and tear on the heating system is also reduced during the winter months. The savings in both climate extremes are amazing when comparing green roofs and green walls to conventional building systems.
“When the trees go, the rain goes, the climate deteriorates, the water table sinks, the land erodes and desert conditions soon appear”.~Richard St. Barbe Baker
In addition to the texture, vegetation can be selected and planted in patterns, pictures and murals to “Transform your building wall into a living canvas with a broad palette of plants.” Source
Noise reduction is an amazing feature for residents, developers and architects proposing construction near railway tracks, in a down town area, or near a busy highway or arterial road. Green walls, with their layers of plant material serve to reduce sound carrying into the living space remarkably. Source
A green wall or a living roof will do its part in mitigating climate change. Hard surfaces such as asphalt shingles, brick walls, harness the sun’s heat in the summer months, radiating this heat. Vegetation provides relief from heat islands created by homes and buildings.
Green walls serve to mitigate bird deaths from “Bird strike” on buildings incorporating a large amount of glass windows, a common contemporary architectural feature. Vegetation contributes to our biodiversity, offering homes for bird nests, and assisting in their migration. Naturalists could combine this technology, and those concerned about our dwindling song bird species, and pollinators could select appropriate food sources, and species. In conclusion, green walls or eco roofs both increase biodiversity in urban areas. In neighbourhoods with limited green spaces, perhaps these sources of vegetations are the only space for food, shelter or nesting for the migrating or indigenous animal species.
Bosco Verticale towers in Milan, Italy
“Animal groups respond differently to the characteristics of green walls and the surrounding features. Importantly, the design and the maintenance interventions of green walls influence their use by animals and, as such, it is possible to modify these environments to make them more attractive to certain animal communities. Whether growing on independent self-supporting structures, or directly on or in buildings, plants can use largely under-exploited vertical space allowing an additional type of ecosystem to be incorporated into the urban environment.”Source
The higher the green environment around a building or home, the cleaner the air. Vegetation reduces pollution, and clean fresh oxygen is available in return.
So comment if you have considered developing an amazing restaurant with a green wall, or if your city features a children’s museum with a living vertical forest. Perhaps you are a home owner contemplating an eco-roof, or maybe you are an architect wishing to bring into play an apartment or condominium as a vertical forest. Have you actually done the construction, and comment about how it went. What do you think? Do you think it would be delightful to be sitting in a living wall restaurant sipping a cappuccino overlooking the wetlands of Saskatchewan? The possibilities are endless for developers, contractors, and owners. Conversely, wouldn’t it be so delightful if the greenscape of the naturalized area was extended in a larger point of view, encompassing both the natural green space, and extending upward into a green wall rather than a greyscape? What a photograph! Are vertical forests, eco-roofs, and green façades a wonderful way to enhance naturalized reserves in cities such as the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, the George Genereux Urban Regional Park and the each and several multitudes of natural parks and green spaces across the city of Saskatoon.
“We forget that we owe our existence to the presence of Trees. As far as forest cover goes, we have never been in such a vulnerable position as we are today. The only answer is to plant more Trees – to Plant Trees for Our Lives.” Richard St. Barbe Baker
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
“The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. ” Wangari Maathai.
“I believed that God has lent us the Earth. It belongs as much to those who come after us as to us, and it ill behooves us by anything we do or neglect, to deprive them of benefits which are in our power to bequeath.” Richard St. Barbe Baker
Encouraging all to work for the future well being of humanity rather than for immediate gain
This summer, gather together your co-workers and come out for Canada’s Corporate Clean Up Week, July 8 – 15. The Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Clean Up takes place Saturday July 9, 2016, what better way for your work place to become involved with a conservation clean up project and make a huge difference to the shorelines.
Summer is a great time for taking part in community initiatives! The Richard St. Barbe Baker Clean up is a part of two amazing programs, Meewasin & Affinity Credit Union Clean-Up Campaign and Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, presented by Loblaw Companies Limited, to clean up, fix up and conserve our precious environment. Come out and clean up the naturalized forest, don’t have time to get away, then take a well most daily “Staycation” in the woods this summer.
If you have registered for the clean up, ask your co-worker to come along and join you. Come out and have a big impact on the wetlands.
Really, when there is a forest in the city, you do have seven days every week to enjoy and savour the outdoors! Come, clean up at the afforestation area, and then hike a trail and enjoy a job well done!
“Litter Litter, sadly, remains a grimy reality in too many communities. It’s an eyesore, harms our tourism industry, poses health risks, and affects water quality. Wildlife often mistake it as food…So we wish people wouldn’t litter and we didn’t have to organize clean-ups.
…We need to reduce our waste in the first place. As consumers, we need to be more aware of the products we buy – and the packaging they come in. We can eschew the plastic utensils. We can stop buying so much throw-away junk. We can share products.
…In a compostable nutshell, citizens just need to think more about our garbage – something we don’t always do.let’s start reducing litter by reducing the amount of trash we throw out. … Let us lend a hand to the thousands of volunteers out there picking up after ourselves.”source
Save the date this summer, here is a special clean up event that fits your schedule. Make a positive difference in your local environment, and improve the quality of life not only for your recreational activities but improve the quality of life for the natural wildlife in Saskatoon!
As Saskatoon grows to 1/2 million by the year 2023, let us help the wildlife also increase their population in the city by the year 2023 as well! Let us save a naturalized forest in the city, where our children and their children’s children can still see a squirrel or a deer in the city! How can you do this? Register the workers at your corporation for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Clean Up.
Muskrat West Swale Wetlands. Chappell Marsh. Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. Saskatoon, SK, CA
Black Capped Chickadee West Swale Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. Saskatoon, SK, CA
Red Winged Blackbird. Chappell Marsh. West Swale Wetlands. Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. Saskatoon, SK, CA
“The simple act of planting a tree, which is in itself a practical deed, is also the symbol of a far reaching ideal, which is creative in the realm of the Spirit, and in turn reacts upon society, encouraging all to work for the future well being of humanity rather than for immediate gain.”~Richard St. Barbe Baker
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
What was Richard St. Barbe Baker’s mission, that he imparted to the Watu Wa Miti, the very first forest scouts or forest guides? To protect the native forest, plant ten native trees each year, and take care of trees everywhere.
“We stand in awe and wonder at the beauty of a single tree. Tall and graceful it stands, yet robust and sinewy with spreading arms decked with foliage that changes through the seasons, hour by hour, moment by moment as shadows pass or sunshine dapples the leaves. How much more deeply are we moved as we begin to appreciate the combined operations of the assembly of trees we call a forest.”~Richard St. Barbe Baker
“St. Barbe’s unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing ‘The Man of the Trees’ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.” Allan Grainger
“The science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to man’s aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of God’s loveliest creatures – the tree.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 