This is really kinda tall.. probably 4'. What is it?



Top of one of them-


Meg

HI MEG it looks like poke salad to me it should put on berry's but do not eat them there poison.some folks eat the the plant but it has to boiled and drained and boiled and drained quite a few times.but i have never tried it.it has toxins in it.but some of the older folks around here in Alabama do eat the plant like greens.but they don't eat them very many times a year.heres a link on how to prepare it to eat.
http://www.chitterlings.com/blog/archives/2005/05/poke_salad.html

your friend in gardening.mike57

I was going to say the same thing. Looks like poke salad to me too.

I found this link that says bluebirds love the fruits of the plant and loads of other interesting/useful bits.

If you decide to eat it, you must pick young shoots that have not begun to turn pinkish.

I've also heard it's good for getting stingers out if you happen to get stung? I've got these popping up everywhere (surprise!) and they drive me nuts, because you can't just pull them out (well, at least I can't) because they snap so easily.

I have a ton of it...and am not really a poke salad eater! But, I read somewhere the other day that it is really poke sallat...is that correct? I have always known it as salad...not sallat....so then I thought that I had just been mis-pronouncing it my entire life. Have any of you ever seen it referred to as "sallat"?

sallat is just another way some folks pronounce it. the corect name is poke salad.i have heard it pronounced both ways.your friend in gardening.mike57

Yep, sallat is actually German for salad I believe.

I had one of those and thought it was milkweed and left it to grow so I could get butterflies to pupate on it. When I realized it was not milkweed, I asked a friend and she called it poke weed or poke berry. Same thing.
I dug it out in the fall after the plant dried up but the tap root was white and slimey (yuck) and about 4 feet long. It did come up quite easily after the ground was good and soaked by rains. I used a garden fork to dig it.

tap root ?

(insert screaming/running graemlin here!)

Ahhhhhhhh! I think somebody identified that for me about a month ago - they're very hard to get up out of the ground.

I have created a spot where I'm going to put some really wierd looking big weeds - stuff like those big thorns, etc. Maybe I'll include that sallat.

I still think they're little trees that are trying to grow though. No matter - I'll put them there anyway. It's on the curve of a fence where I've put some logs - I've been throwing leaves and some of that gawd-awful clayish soil.

I notice they aren't particular where they grow.