The Ultimate Desert Plant: Mesquite Tree Uses and Benefits
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- Опубликовано: 22 июл 2024
- Hey folks!
I have been waiting a long time to make this video! The mesquite tree is finally starting to set bean pods, which means I can give you a detailed look into this wonderful permaculture tree for arid desert environments. I'll also be showing you the best way to harvest mesquite for food use!
The Mesquite (Prosopis genus) has been a pioneer plant in arid to semi-arid environments for millennia. It is a nitrogen fixing legume that also provides shade and nutrients to other plants and animals in locations where those things are scarce.
It has been used historically as a medicine for many different ailments, and as a food source in otherwise food scarce deserts. It is still used today by many indigenous tribes in the Southwest! The mesquite pod is a wonderful source of nutrition and culture, so come along and learn all about this amazing beneficial plant!
Online references:
extension.arizona.edu/sites/e...
texnat.tamu.edu/about/brush-b...
www.chelseagreen.com/2020/pow...
Books for reference:
Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair by Gary Paul Nabhan
Southwest Foraging by John Slattery
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Hello from Southern AZ and thanks for all your wonderful videos! What a great topic😊 I live very close to the Mexican border in Cochise County AZ and our 8 acres is basically part of huge a mesquite forest. Oddly enough our beans don't come till' after monsoon season around here and we harvest and mill sometime around October. The mill I think you're talking about is in Tucson AZ and they even hold a yearly mesquite pancake breakfast after the harvest! Great work on all your content and thanks for being one of very few creators who has content about the southern high deserts!
Thanks so much! It means a lot to me that someone in the same climate benefits from my content 😁 that was the goal when I began this journey! I so wish we had a mill here!
Hey neighbor! We are also in Cochise County in Hereford! Are you harvesting your Mesquite beans? I seem to miss the window before the monsoon rains to harvest them.
I live in the Joshua Tree area and had one of these planted in my backyard last year. The contractor told me it was a Palo Verde, but I noticed it looked very different from the wild Palo Verde trees around. It's definitely growing slowly and is too young to flower. I can't wait for it to become a strong large tree. Pesky rabbits have been eating the leaves though because the tree is still small and some branches hang low.
Oh nice yah we have a lot of Palo verde here as well. The main difference is in the stems and trunk. The Palo verde is completely green and has beautiful yellow flowers bloom in the spring.
I’m a little bit of a research obsessed person. I love to learn. After watching hours of videos and reading even more material. I think this may be the best video with very useful information. The hair dye sap was surprising and I don’t recall it being anywhere I have watched or read until now. I added this video to my playlist of interesting by other channels! Subscribed just to watch out for other plant videos !
Thanks so much!
I had no idea that there are still mesquite mills in Arizona, that is AWESOME! My mom's family is from Arizona, now I want to take a truck full of mesquite pods to get processed for flour LOL
Very cool information. I never seen or known of the screw bean mesquite. I been around mesquite trees all my life over here on the Rez in AZ. We do have a yearly mesquite pancake doings which was i think a couple of weeks back, i didnt attend but my Grandma did. I actually trimmed mesquite trees here on our land over the weekend, they grew crazee wild branches that were hanging to the ground.
👍✌
Mesquite is the best and very useful and rewarding
It really is!
really great info and presentation, superb.
Thank you kindly!
Very well done! Great job.
Thank you very much!
Wow I have a mesquite tree I didn’t know all this information about it, thank you 😊
Glad it was helpful!
Cool video! I have a huge one in my backyard here in Arizona. ❤
Thanks!
That’s so interesting ❤ thank you for sharing.
You are so welcome
Thanks, a really good video!!!
Thank you!
great video and information
Thank you!
Well done.
Thumbs up for “Nitrogenous.”
Informative, nice presentation.
Great video, good information. I'm thinking of buying some velvet mesquite seeds to plant out on my property. Seems like an extremely useful tree for a productive polyculture.
It's definitely is!
Very interesting!
Glad you think so!
great info, thx you
Glad it was helpful!
This is fascinating!!! I didn't know any of this except that legumes add nitrogen to soil. I've learned so much today!!
Glad it was helpful!
Love the authentic way you said Tomales and tortillas 😅
@@AHomesteadingHustle hahahaha. Grew up round here. Seems wrong for me not to say them the right way 🤣 I also speak Spanish.
@@thefiresidefarm makes sense! Haha! That's awesome!
Just saw your video and the urban farm has a mesquite mill to process the mesquite pods into flour.
Would like to also mention that Mesquite flour does not get weevils. I live in the desert and my Mesquite flour was outside all summer this year and it never got any weevils…so that was pretty cool. Most people say Mesquite tastes more like caramel with subtle chocolate undertones. Adding just 2 TBS to your bread mix will be more than enough to fully taste the Mesquite.
Wow I wasn't aware of the weevil information! Thanks for sharing!
@@thefiresidefarm surprised the heck out of me too. Although I grow a lot of my own food, it's not cost productive in the desert to grow grain. But recently I've noticed that sometimes even freezing flour doesn't kill all the weevils so I am looking to buy a lot of Mesquite flour for long term storage.
thank you i just watched this video
i live in Buckeye az the road is lined with mesqute trees full of golden pods i will be trying to collect pods in the next few days and give then a try
Awesome! Yah once they start drying and turning brown they are good to go. If they're still moIst you should have no problem air drying them in AZ 🤣. Lemme know how it goes!
not at 110
Wow! I never knew mesquite came from a tree. I don’t think we have those up here in SE PA. Very cool video
Thanks !
I loves your video. Did you ever make the mesquite tea.? Ive been waiting for it.
No I ended up never making it because after that first flush of pods we had some monsoon rains🥲 both a blessing and a curse. But I missed that first window to harvest a bunch
Great video, very informative. I have a question. I'm just know finishing a small irrigation system in the Hueco Tanks area of west Texas and need some advise with how to plant and water about 6 to 9 Texas honey mesquite trees.
From my experience, mesquite is a native desert plant that thrives well on just rainwater.
I wonder if anyone made a bean pod picker, like the apple pickers. to get the pods higher up in the tree?
Thank you for such an informative and concise video! You have deepened my knowledge of Mesquite and how to use it. Lucky thing that you have a neighbor with more honey mesquite, and you can root cuttings or spread seed from the best of her specimens! I was wondering about aflatoxin and livestock. Are livestock unaffected by aflatoxin when they eat mesquite pods from the ground? Would the toxin pass into the milk of a dairy animal?
I am not sure about those answers
Wow I love your channel I do landscaping❤
That's awesome thanks!
Mesquite tree wich is called in the desert of Atacama, Chile; Tamarugo, grows naturarly theres forrest of it. The tree has super long roots and feed himself from very low water table level. So no directly from rain.
Thank you that was very interesting. The mesquite seems very stable over there. Here in So Cal the mesquite that I've interacted with always tends to fall over. Do most of the mesquite stay upright or fall over in your area.
I've seen both...in the wild of the desert they tend to be shrubs more than trees.
@@thefiresidefarm Cool thank you!
This video was great; thank you!
I'm converting my Phoenix area yard from grass to xeriscape and will be planting two Velvet Mesquite trees.
My wife and I have differing opinions of how a yard should look. 🤣
I'm wanting to go for a native/natural look, she's more interested in everything looking neat and clean (sterile). 😢
I am not putting down gravel (don't want to contribute to the heat island effect). Instead, my yard is covered with wood chips.
Here's my questions:
1. If I let the seed pods stay on the ground, will I have a ton of baby Mesquites popping up?
2. How long does it take for the pods to decompose and become part of the soil?
3. Any recommendations on how to win my wife over?!? 🤣🙄
Thanks so much! 😊
Hahahaha I can't answer that last question for you...
But yah all of the mesquite trees in my yard came from seeds that had blown in the wind. Granted...I do have ideal soil for them to germinate, but they still come up fine with little rain. The pods take quite a while to decompose...ive seen them last for years under the tree. Mostly because there's not much rain to help break them down...
But they may be taken up by birds and other animals that love to nibble om them!
I live in Blythe California. Man are home did not have a lot she trees them brothers, so I got Mesquite trees in our house me and my dad grew out 5,6 of them at our house is starting to get more more shade and the better the backyard gets covered the more relax we have for our spots to sit down
We have plenty Mesquite wood readily available in the San Antonio, RGV region. They give off an amazing pungent flavor when grilling for burgers or poultry.
But because Mesquite has the strongest flavor out of other other common BBQ hardwoods
It's not really the main wood for low n' slow BBQ cooks such as brisket.
Sometimes it's blended with Post Oak with a low ratio of Mesquite so that the meat can still have that nice Mesquite flavor without it being too strong.
I've been needing to harvest some mesquite wood for open fire cooking!
I planted Two on the coast, about 5 miles from the ocean, will they do ok? Your Spanish is spot on. 👍
Thanks! I've never lived on the coast but they are pretty hardy trees so I'm sure they'll be fine. 😊
They are great off the coast ❤
thank you. I remember as a kid that we ate mesquite beans.
We have a mesquite tree on our property that we've become attached to. When we first moved onto the land (in a trailer) the tree was small and looked sickly but over the passed few years my partner has helped it to flourish. Now we are finally entering into the stage of planning for a house to be built and it's looking like there is no way the tree will be able to stay because it is in the center of the property. 😭 We are so sad and trying to come up with ideas. Any suggestions would be appreciated. It's maybe 10 feet tall, would it be possible to have to professionally transplanted? If all else fails I've thought about propagating from it so that it can live on in that way but we usually have bad luck with plants so I don't know if we'd be able to do that successfully. 😟
Ooo that I'm not sure of! I would definitely call a professional arborist in your area. I'm not familiar eith transplanting established trees...especially ones with deep root systems
Found another use in a video by June Garza interviewing Benito Trevino eye drops from the leaves soaked overnight.
Interesting thanks for sharing!
Super jealous you have screw being mesquites, have been looking all over to find them. The Urban Farm does helps with mesquite harvesting and does walk around mesquite classes in the Phoenix area. Look them up online, they also have a hammer Mill and will process your mesquite seed seed pods into flour for a price.
Oh no allllll I have here on my property is screwbean. I wish I had more texas honey mesquite haha
I grew up eating the pods as a kid. My family would harvest the downed branches for fire wood as they had a wood stove. You can use the thorns as emergency sewing needles. Livestock will eat the leaves if they dont have grass available. I used to feed them to my meat rabbits when i had some. I have a big mesquite on my property that i would stick potted trees under it to provide shade until i planted them. Unfortunately it grew out of control and ill have to cut it down. People should really prune them as itll help them grow taller and look like a tree and not a bush.
Yah I try to prune the extra branches each winter so it will grow straighter. They actually come out single stemmed initially, but it's when the crown or main branches get cut/damaged that the shrub will create multiple branches and grow like that. They are beautiful as single trunk trees!....and a pain in my butt when they bush out haha
Mesquite is king. Cherry is queen. But Pecan is the choice of professionals!
I want to plant one in my backyard but i was told the roots are invasive and they would mess up water lines. 😫
That is definitely a concern!
You can keep them cut to a shrub and grow them in air pruning pots. I live in the desert and grow my own food, going on 30 years now. Water bills were horrendous so about five years ago I converted all my growing to air pots….fruit and nut trees, grapes, seasonals, everything can be converted to a shrub because in reality they were mostly all shrubs to begin with and mankind thought they knew better and started breeding everything into tree shape.
Shrubs are easier to harvest, easier to protect from drying winds and rodents, and more importantly, use a small percentage of water compared to a tree.
They seem to be more disease resistant as they have more efficient root systems when grown in air pots compared to the roots having to search for water everywhere; so they put their effort into producing fruit, etc.
It just depends what your purpose is. As I use the JADAM method of fertilizing, everything growing here is used to make fertilizer, even pesticides, so I don’t need the nitrogen fixing qualities….
I live in Las Vegas and my Chilian Mesquite was not growing leaves on one of the main trunks it's 30years old,I cut the trunk down and found all these little holes turns out it was Mesquite Borers,I used a systematic insecticide hope I caught it soon enough, until this I never knew they had a specific insect that kills them.
Wow I was unaware of that as wrll. I have never seen them have damage around here
@@thefiresidefarm I missed the early signs,I hope it comes back in spring,so far it still has its leaves,one of the top canopies looks like it might not, pretty much I have half a tree now,but between the systemic insecticide and super fertilizer I use every year it might survive.
There is a South African company called MannaBrew that sell a roasted and ground Mesquite powder specifically for making "coffee", if anyone is interested.
Thanks for sharing!
We got your monsoon rain 🌧️ in Texas as requested 😅
Hahahaha
Does the honey mesquite grow chucata?
I had to Google "chucata" haha. But yes the mesquite tree does produce sap, especially at its injury points or at a split in the trunk. The sap can be used for salves, directly on a wound, or as a "gum" to chew on....though I have never tried it.
@@thefiresidefarm there are different kinds of mesquite. Some have a different color chucata that isn’t edible but it can be used for other things. The mesquite gives and gives💞.
Are you aware of the use of green pods for food?
Also, are you aware of anyone making tofu with the legumes?
I will be growing several varieties here in arizona for food and am interested in recipes.
No I have not heard of either of those! But tofu would be extremely interesting!
Wow ok , I don't like the dry ones... I usually eat the ones reddish green
I’ve never noticed the pods on the mesquite tree. Of course we don’t have many in my area. Is love to try some mesquite tea.
I wish we had a local mill here! Otherwise I'd make some flour. But I think out would break my blender if I tried to use that
Are all of the seeds/pods edible?
Yes 😁 as long as they are pulled off the tree. You don't want to eat ones that have fallen to the ground.
@@thefiresidefarm I have been finding different things on the internet that say otherwise?
Well.....one guy said he spent time in the hospital because he misidentified a seed pod.....and acacia seed pods look very much alike....errrrrrr....I just wanna pick/ eat some seed pods, why does this feel so technical..
Aren't some of these Mesquite trees thornless?
Once they get they grow large and get their bark, the trunk and main branches are thornless. But any new or small branches have thorns. There is only one thornless mesquite and it is a hybrid. I don't know much about it but it doesn't grow naturally in my area.
@@thefiresidefarmok thanks
TAMARUGO PROSOPIS BTW
Nice tree but I feel bad for what you did to your body so care for trees but you damage your arm with these ugly cancer inviters Tato!
Cancer inviters is my new way of describing tattoos🤣. Thank you 🙏
"I came here because of the Gomer Pyle episode about tomatoes and mesquite."
Bahahahahaha! You're the first! Congrats 👏
Is a "Maverick" Mesquite the same as a Honey Mesquite?
I'm not sure! They grow naturally here so I never have to purchase them. The name sounds like a created variety.