If you’ve got a sweet tooth, these are for you. The flower is good raw or cooked, on its own or as part of a salad. The longer the flower is open, the sweeter it gets.
MIXED BOUQUETS
Habitat: Anywhere on Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day.
Edible uses: Petals help any dish to cut a dash, so root around in a mixed bouquet for your favourites. Rose petals are especially palatable, a sprinkling of carnations makes a peppery addition to any meal, and tulips have a fresh taste, a bit like cucumber.
Danger! Poisonous houseplants
Every year people are hospitalised after eating poisonous houseplants. Some of the most notorious culprits are the fruit and seeds of the Bird of Paradise plant, Ivy, Caladium, Saddleleaf, Castor Oil plant and Philodendra. Swiss Cheese Plant (Monstera deliciosa) is another. As its Latin name implies, it has a tasty fruit, which looks a bit like a corn on the cob. But this is only edible after a year maturing on the plant; eating it too soon can make you seriously ill, and in some cases even cause death.
THE YUCCA – A ONE-STOP ACTIVITY CENTRE
It’s one of the most common plants in the indoor environment. You’ve been watering it all these years; now it’s time for some payback.
You can eat it, make rope and blankets with it, weave baskets and carve figurines, and it’s the best wood bar none for lighting fires, so it’s not surprising that Native American tribes mythologised the powers of the yucca. If you are prepared to sacrifice part of the root and trunk you have a day of yucca fun ahead, rounded off nicely with this evening’s fire-lighting ceremony.
Which variety?
If you bought your yucca tree somewhere like Ikea there’s a good chance its variety is the giant yucca (Yucca elephantipes) – which has all the qualities mentioned above. Most other yuccas do as well, but it’s best to check. Another common variety is Spanish Bayonet (Yucca aloifolia), which is considered the best to eat.
Uses
YUCCA CHOPSTICKS
Time: one hour
The smooth wood is perfect to eat from, and splits easily. Start with a branch that looks about the right size to get one or two pairs of chopsticks from it and split it down the middle. Whittle away until one end of each is rounded, leaving the other end in its raw twig-like state for rustic authenticity.
YUCCA BRUSHES
Time: two hours
You need to have prepared for this by soaking some leaves in water for a couple of weeks. Now pound them with a stone to get rid of the green pulp until just the fibres are left. Tie a bunch of fibres close to one end. The Navajo would bind one end tight for use as a hair brush; the other, looser, end served as a clothes brush. Or, if you prefer, wind the fibres to make string, rope, baskets or a blanket (maybe just a very small one).
YUCCA FLOWER FRITTER
Time: 30 minutes
To do the least damage to your plant just eat the flower petals; they’re good raw but best lightly cooked (dusted in flour and fried in oil for five minutes). If your yucca has a fruit you’re in for a juicy treat. The stem of the flower is edible too, best peeled and boiled like asparagus. All to be eaten with the yucca chopsticks, of course.
YUCCA SOAP
Time: 40 minutes
Take a bit of the root and crush it in a bowl of water until it starts to go sudsy. The more you work at it, the more lather you get. Now you’re ready for the Navajo hairwash, all the rage in the spas of New Mexico.
THE POWER-ASSISTED YUCCA FIRE-LIGHTING
CEREMONY
In general, friction fire lighting by rubbing sticks is far too much bother. With some dried yucca, however, you have the best chance you’re going to get of pulling it off, which has a certain satisfaction of its own. You can match the TV expert without leaving the living room.
It’s all down to the yucca’s uniquely low ignition temperature. To experience the thrill, without the sweat, here’s what you’ll need:
dried yucca wood (after harvesting, leave for a week somewhere dry and warm)
a power drill with blunt drill tip
a ball of tinder; shredded paper/wool
Carve a small bowl-shaped dent into your yucca* and drill down into this until it begins to smoke. You need a blunt drill so that you don’t bore through the soft wood too quickly.
Once the friction creates enough heat for the yucca wood to start smoking – you’ll see it and smell it at the same time – keep going a little longer. Now whip the drill away and look for a tiny red-hot lump – or a’coal’. Very quickly, tip your coal into the tinder ball, blowing on it gently in the way you’ve seen on all those survival shows.
If you don’t succeed at first keep trying. Or use a match.
Now put up a few shelves – you may as well, now that you’ve got the drill out.
THE CEILING SUNDIAL
The ceiling sundial brings the intrigue of the celestial cycle, of solstices and seasons, into your bedroom, and it’s a pretty good way to tell if you’re late for work as well.
Lying in bed one morning looking at the lines of sunlight thrown across the ceiling by reflections from the car windscreen below, I invented the ceiling sundial. I really did, even though Sir Isaac Newton had done the same, 350 years earlier. Whether it’s the father of modern physics, you or me, it’s pretty obvious that an ability to tell the time by looking at your bedroom ceiling is a thing worth having.
All you need is a mirror positioned on your window ledge so that a spot of light is thrown onto your ceiling. This is the simplest form of sundial; it needs the least equipment, it’s fast to set up and, best of all, the space available on the ceiling allows for a bigger dial, giving extreme accuracy.
It only works if you have a south-facing bedroom, or at least a view of the southern sky from your room (anywhere between SW and SE facing is perfect).
As well as a south-facing room and available ceiling you need:
a small mirror
glue or tape
a pencil
a clock.
