i have found that alot of the invasives around here (mi) are edibile. i think i could live off garlic mustard, thistle, and hedge parsley if i didn’t get tired of the taste. honeysuckle’s inner bark makes some perty good cordage. it’s branch’s have a nice curve that work well for bow drills and probably a regular bow but i havn’t tried. garlic mustard also seems to work at keeping bugs off. i hope that helps and keep experimenting
ahh garlic mustard! I spent a summer pulling that stuff in MI… but yes, edible, that’s why it was brought over the ocean in the first place… probably better to put on and flavor something rather than to just eat… hence the name obviously…
IMO, a lot of invasives are here to stay. I mean, seriously, can anyone really picture dandelion or plaintain leaving North America any time in the next few centuries? I can’t…
My preference for interaction w/ flora & land is to encourage natives over invasives when possible, but bottom line is that if there’s a need not getting filled, better an invasive fill it than an even more crippled ecology.
For example, in my area Autumn Olives are often considered invasive, but I just can’t hold it against the plant. The berries are tasty, help support innumerable birds; the roots fix nitrogen in the soil which helps a wide variety of other plants (many natives).
I’m pretty sure scotch broom is entirely poisonous.
There is a difference between exotic and invasive. Plantain is exotic, but fully naturalized in NA now. Some researchers are having some success using burning to discourage invasives. But the real trick is to deny them their niche. If their preferred habitat is not abundant they won’t crowd out other plants. One of the beauties of permaculture is that it shows how to do this.
i respectfully disagree. i’ve read about the seeds being used as a coffee substitute.
Penny Scout says that you can use the seeds as a substitute for coffee, but that it does have toxic properties. So you’re both right!
Brief side note: The book Wild Health talks about “toxins” in plants serving as medicines from time to time. It all depends on when, how, and why you eat something.
And most importantly, how much. There are loads of such chemicals. (ex: atropene = eye medicine and pain killer, too much = violent, painful death.) 
Well, of course, I had put “how much” in there originally, but I thought it would be redundant next to “how”.
scotch broom outter bark peeled off of mid sized plants can be used to make cordage and you can make bow drill with it.dont huff the smoke though…its all nasty.
Interesting, Scotch Broom is also a very big pest species here in Aus now.
I was at a ‘bush regeneration’ site last week, after some backburning done by the Fire Service (necessary) there was a mass blooming of this stuff along a river, it outcompeted every other plant and it took months of work from pros and volunteers to get rid of it. One reason being you can’t just rip every piece of vegetation up from a river bank or you will destroy the bank itself and its soil, the invasive needs to be replaced slowly with natives, but done before the broom layed down its seeds.
I’m not sure about what invasive plants are useful here that grow wild but I do know there are plenty (sometimes in plague proportions dependingon the species) of rabbits, hares, cats, foxes, pigs, goats, horses, camels, deer running wild now.
In SoCal, one of the worst invaders is the feral Artichoke or Cardoon. Despite the worst spines I have ever known about on any herbaceous plant, it’s flower “hearts” are just as tasty as the cultivated ones (harder to harvest, smaller than cultivars). In addition, the large flower stalks and massive tap roots when peeled and boiled are a good vegetable. The Plants for a future data base lists huge amounts of medicinal uses.
Old thread. New info!
For a couple years now I’ve been working with various invasive species in various capacities.
Nutria: fur! That’s what it was brought here for!
Mostly weaving though. English Ivy, Scotch Broom, Himalayan Blackberry bark, Flag Iris are the main four plants I’m weaving with these days.
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Is that the Yellow Flag Iris?
Yes, yellow flag iris.
Generally speaking , roughly 50% of what you see are an introduced species , either very early or late … in the Americas. Meaning the U.S.
Some have been here so long, hundreds of years, that it might be wrong to call them invasive . but established.
Dude
Around here, the main invasives are garllic mustard, autumn-olive, and japanese knotweed, all of which I use in some way.
I eat a lot of garlic mustard. I eat the leaves when theyre the only green available (but IMO they’re pretty pungent and so I either use them as a seasoning (primitive pesto with garlic mustard & ramp leaves!!) or I only eat a few). My favorite part is the younger juicy stalks in mid-spring, they’re better tasting than the leaves! I gather as many of them as I can, making sure to gather them before they flower because 1) they get very tough when they flower and 2) the flowers turn into the seeds and, as much as I like garlic mustard, I like the diversity of the forests better. I tried drying out the seeds this summer but they were so small and they got stuck in the basket I gathered them in! The dead stalks are very good for starting a fire, as they make less smoke than grass and they catch better, but they’re not that great for after it starts going strong.
I just stuff myself on as many ripe autumn-olive berries as I find, hoping that I don’t get sick afterwards 
I’ve heard that they’re really good for fruit leather, but my main collecting device for them is my mouth and stomach (I really like them!!) I haven’t experimented with the wood yet, but I bet it would be good for making a bow for a bow-drill kit… then again, those aren’t so hard to make.
I haven’t eaten the japanese knotweed shoots yet (I’m planning on it next spring), but, in the fall, when the plants die back, they store drinkable water in their cells! It’s not that much, but you could probably get a good drink out of a whole plant. I also use the cells as containers, but they don’t last that long. I haven’t tried this, but alot of people I know use a tincture from the roots to prevent Lyme disease.
I just started making beaver-tooth carving tools, but since nutria teeth are similar, it might be better to do more with them instead of beavers, as beaver populations are still bouncing back from extinction. Only problem is, there aren’t a lot of nutria around here. I’m currently looking to buy them online.
Trying to revive this thread.
I love love love talking about “invasive” species. I prefer to call them “pioneer plants”. In any case, here in Wisconsin, buckthorn is really booming. It produces lots of berries that the birds love and poop all over the place. I’ve tried thinking of uses for this nasty shrub (although I don’t hold it against the plant). They are prolific which makes me thing BIOMASS. They really could be eradicated quickly if we used them for firewood. I also think they would make good hugelkultur beds. I cut one down in my yard this Spring so I’ll have to try it out.
Autumn Olive is also supposedly pretty bad, but I haven’t seen it where I live. Which is unfortunate because it’s probably my most favorite berry in the world ( tried it while in the Driftless area last summer). I may even plant one in my yard. I personally think it has incredible value as a forage plant. It contains more lycopene than tomatoes. And it’s a nitrogen fixer. Win-win.
Bindweed is pretty bad where I live. It creeps into my gardens and seems especially bad this year. But, again, it creates a ridiculous amount of biomass so I am trying to embrace it.
Honeysuckle is bad too. Haven’t thought of anything for that. I think I read on this thread that it makes good cordage. I’ll have to try it.
What are your thoughts about the possibility of people getting dependent on (addicted to) the introduced species? Suppose you have an invasive species that makes much better and lasting baskets than any native ones? Would it not become the preferred material for making baskets? At the same time, would we lose the knowledge and experience on how to best gather and use the native species?
A good example are potatoes. These came from South America but even in the 16th century they had become staple food to the population in various parts of Europe. And they still are. Only, at lower altitudes they tend to easily suffer from phytophthora in lower, moister climates. So here come the spraying and genetic engineering…
What should rewilders do? Eat as many potatoes as possible to hopefully keep them at bay? Refrain from using them, not only as food but also as a source of starch for many other products? Get to know them better and incorporate them in our lifestyle? Is it different when you live in South America? North America?
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