wrote:


I definitely have a lot to learn, and am not afraid to do so. But I
don't think that planting various plants everyone is familiar with, and
are available in stores, is going to be a concern. Afterall, when you
eat them outside the seeds end up in the ground anyways.


You might want to start with Euell Gibbons' "Stalking the Wild
Asparagus"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books)
to learn about some edible species. I'm sure you've got some of the
plants he talks about in your area. The dandelion, for example, was one
of the most regularly eaten plants in North America until we started to
subarbanize and it became a lawn "weed." And all those acorns you have
in the northeast are a food source as well.

It is unlikely that broadcasting garden seeds would do anything long
term to change your local ecosystem. Most of these plants are pretty
domesticated and won't compete with wild varieties.

That said, despite your mantra that change is good, the willy nilly
altering of ecosystems is not something to be entered into without much
thought. It's not just a matter of change being inevitable. Some times
small changes can have unintended consequences. Would you really want to
be the one who causes a wetland to dry up? Or to be the cause of a
species going ixtinct? Sure, it happens. And it is often an unintended
consequence of some human activity. So, I encourage you to learn as much
as you can.

My goal is to live within my ecosystem, not to remake it to my own liking.

David