**Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor do I pretend to be. This article is informative and only covers the traditional uses for edible plants commonly found in the Appalachian region. It’s always best to consult a health care professional or medical doctor when suffering from any ailment, disease, illness, or injury before trying any traditional folk remedies. **
Nothing says early winter like a pine tree, whether you’re making wreaths, picking out scented candles for the season, or hauling in a fresh Christmas tree to decorate with family or friends.
However, few people know how delicious, healthy, and practical the pine tree can be these days!
Almost all pine trees are edible. Their bark, needles, resin, and pollen, are packed with vitamins and antioxidants and have many medicinal uses. In addition, pine needles and bark are useful for basketry and other structural items.
About Pine Trees
Medicinal Properties: antiseptic, astringent, inflammatory, antioxidant, expectorant
Varieties of Pine in Appalachia:
- Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus, or “Cone Pine”)
- Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida, or “Rigid Pine”)
- Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana)
- Red Pine (Pinus resinosa, or “Resinous Pine”)
- Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata, or “Prickly Pine”)
- Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda, or “Torch Pine”)
- Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens, or “Stinky Pine”)
In Appalachia’s earliest history, pine trees were a staple in crafting, medicine, and food, especially in late fall and winter.
Pine trees produce pine nuts, abundant pollen that you can use as flour, and a nutritious inner layer of bark that you can boil to make noodles.
Since pine trees are evergreen and stay vibrant all year, they made an excellent overwinter food source for indigenous Americans within and beyond Appalachia.
As a medicine, pine needles and bark are effective in bolstering the immune system, thanks to their incredibly high concentrations of vitamin C. In fact, pine needles are still the main ingredient in Tamiflu.
As recorded in Kay Moss’s Southern Folk Medicine, pine was a very common ingredient in many medicinal treatments. It was used in concoctions to treat venereal diseases, dropsy, swelling, the “yaws” (country distemper, often supposed to be scurvy or syphilis), blisters, coughs, skin infections, and many more conditions.
While pine tips, or the fresh shoots of the pine tree, were the most common medicinal ingredient in the 1800s, the resins and tar from pine trees made a fantastic base for almost any medicine.
Pine bark could make a naturally antiseptic bandage, and pine tar made blister plasters, an antiseptic ointment, and liquid bandages. It also functions well as a natural glue.
Pine was also one of the earliest “perfumes” – though the dried and ground pollen, bark, and needles were originally rubbed on the body to mask human odors for hunting purposes.
Beyond medicines, pine needles have long been a popular material in basketry.
Which Pines are Edible?
All pine trees except the Norfolk island pine, Western Yellow Ponderosa Pine, Bull Pine, and Black Jack Pine are edible. However, be aware that lookalikes like Yew trees are toxic.
All of the most common Appalachian forest pine are edible, but check for the proper bark structure, the number of needles in each fascicle, and needle structure.
If the needles do not grow in clusters, it’s safe to say that you are not dealing with a pine tree but, instead, another type of evergreen.
How To Identify and Harvest Pine
Pine trees differ from other trees because they have needle-shaped leaves that grow in clusters and grow both male and female cones.
Pine Cones
The female cones are the pine cones that everyone is familiar with. On the other hand, the male cones appear near the end of each branch as bulbous little berry-like structures that produce pollen to fertilize the female cones.
Pine Bark
The most notable characteristic of a mature pine tree is its bark, which divides into furrows that look similar to large, patchy scales.
These scales appear in different patterns depending on the specific variety of pine.
For example, the Eastern White Pine’s bark generally has very thick scales with straight furrows between each patch.
The red pine, however, has large, curving red scales that flake off regularly.
Needles and Fascicles of Appalachian Pines
Unlike other evergreens, pine trees have long needles that grow in clusters called fascicles. These fascicles have a bark-like cap near the pine’s branch, keeping each needle secure.
Most pines either have two, three, or five needles per fascicle.
For example:
- The Virginia pine and Shortleaf pine have two needles per fascicle
- The Pitch pine, Red pine, and Loblolly pine have three needles per fascicle
- The Eastern White pine has five needles per fascicle
- The Table Mountain pine has between two and three needles per fascicle
Some pines, like the pitch pine, grow needles along the trunk, not just on the branches. That characteristic of pitch pine makes it easy to identify.
How To Prepare and Use Pine
Pine Needle Tea
Pine needle tea is one of the easiest things to make with pine. To make it, just wash off some fresh, green pine needles or tips, then steep them in hot water for around 10 minutes.
Pine needle tea is perfect for sick days, as pine needles contain plenty of vitamin C and antioxidants. Despite these medicinal benefits, pine tea is just good! Add some honey if you don’t love bitter teas.
Coiled Pine Baskets
Pine needle baskets are some of the oldest baskets in the history of the world.
The oldest known basket is a coiled basket found in the Jude Desert, and it dates back to the neolithic period circa 9,000 BCE!
However, pine needle coiled basketry is a North American art. Pine needle basket making was common among the Native Americans in the area we now call Appalachia on the Southeastern side of the USA.
As an Appalachian, there’s no better way to get in touch with my local history – and enjoy the pine-fresh scent on my evenings after work – than to make pine baskets!
What You’ll Need To Make A Coiled Pine Needle Basket
You don’t need anything too fancy to start your basket. All you need are:
- Plenty of dry pine needles
- A container to soak your needles in
- A plastic straw or tube of some sort. I’m using a Dunkin Donuts straw since it is wide and very strong.
- Some twine, craft thread, ribbon, embroidery floss, sinew thread, or cotton crochet thread – or any other string. I will use cotton crochet thread size 10 for this tutorial since it is strong and gives my baskets a nice subdued natural look.
- A needle that can accommodate your thread. I will use a small tapestry needle, but you can use a plastic tapestry needle, bone needle, embroidery needle, bookbinding needle, or sewing needle.
1. Harvest Your Pine Needles
When making a pine needle basket, you want to harvest the already-dead leaves from the tree’s base.
Fresh pine needles are full of moisture; as they dry, they will shrink. If you use these fresh needles, each coil of your basket will shrink over time, making your stitches too loose to hold the basket together.
Plus, choosing the dead needles is better for the tree, anyway. I suggest taking more than you will need. Grab a whole bunch! You can always use the leftovers for another project or place some outside as mulch.
2. Soak Your Pine Needles for Around an Hour
Pine needles are pretty flexible, but as they dry out, they become too brittle to make baskets with.
Soaking them for 30 minutes to an hour with warm water before you begin coiling will make them more flexible and keep them from snapping as you sew them into your basket.
I like to soak mine in a plastic shoe box since it’s easy to clean, and I can always pop the lid on when I want to take a break.
However, don’t soak the needles for more than a day at a time. If you soak them too long, they’ll lose all their strength and decay. Working with over-hydrated pine needles is like trying to sew around a cooked noodle – they will split, break off, and be slimy.
So, if you hit a natural stopping point in your work and want to pick it up another day, drain the water from your needles and allow them to dry. Then, add more water to the container when you want to work on your basket again.
3. Prepare and Fill Your Straw Gauge
The straw I recommended you get earlier will work as an easy way to keep your pine needles in a circular “tube” shape, and it will make it easier for you to add more pine needles as you work around your basket.
So, to start, take some pine needles out of your soaking container, and find the “fascicle,” the dark bark-like sleeve around the base of the needles’ bunches.
Pull these dark sleeves off of the needles – I find that a quick scrape with my fingernail is the fastest method – to remove your pine needles from their bundles.
Then pack your pine needles into your straw or tube, pushing plenty in until your straw is full.
Now, you shouldn’t pack the straw too tightly or too loosely. The straw should be easy to slide over your needles, but it shouldn’t fall off when you shake your little bundle.
Also, as you sew in your coils in the following steps, you will need to add more needles. Try to keep the pressure inside your straw gauge nice and tight as you go, and as it gets looser, just push in more needles.
Keeping the coil size consistent will ensure that your basket comes out in a nice, symmetrical shape.
4. Start The Beginning Coil
To start your basket, you want a tight, thread-dense coil to work as your basket’s strong “anchor.”
To create this first coil:
- Thread your needle with a few feet of thread.
- Take the end of your thread and arrange it into your bundle of needles, with the raw edge of the thread pointing away from the pine needles’ base.
- Hold the end of the thread in the bundle tightly.
- Wrap your thread around the bundle tightly at least 10 times. You should be wrapping it over that tail end and the entire bundle of pine needles.
- Keep wrapping until you have a few centimeters of fully coiled needles.
5. Sew in the Foundation Loop
Once you have a few centimeters of wrapped pine needles, you need to create the foundation loop with your coil. Here’s how to do it:
- Pinch your fully coiled needles into a coil or loop.
- Hold the loop tightly with your fingers, then take your sewing needle in your other hand.
- Push the sewing needle into the area where you began coiling in step 4, then pull it tight. You can make several extra stitches around this joint to make it more secure.
You should now have a tight, fully coiled loop, which will serve as the center of your basket.
6. Create One More Densely Coiled Section
Now that you have your beginning loop, things will get easier!
Take your needle and thread and wrap the string around your pine needles about 10 more times, keeping your wraps very tight.
Once you have a small section, push it against your beginning loop, curve it around, and set it flush with your foundation loop.
Then, insert your needle into the center of the coil. Push the needle through the coiled pine needles, then pull it tight to secure it. Now, it’s time to start the stitch pattern.
7. Start the Simple Stitch Pattern
To create a simple radiating spiral pattern with your stitches, you’ll need to stagger your stitches evenly as you coil the needles around your foundation loop.
To make this process easy, here’s what to do:
- Loop your thread around your pine needles from the inside of the basket to the outside.
- Look at your foundation coil, and count 4 to 5 loops from your last stitch.
- Insert your needle between the 4th and 5th loops from your foundation loop.
- Wrap your thread around the coil from the inside of the basket to the outside again.
- Count the next four loops around your foundation coil, then insert your needle between the 4th and 5th loops.
- Repeat the process until you come full circle, back to where you started this stitch pattern.
Your basket should look like this now:
8. Keep Coiling Following the Stitch Pattern
To keep this stitch pattern, keep wrapping once, then stitching. You should insert your needle right next to the thread on your previous layer so each wrap of the thread lines up, creating a radial appearance.
Then, just keep coiling!
9. Create Walls When You Are Ready
When you want your basket to start sloping up, simply pinch your bundled pine needles in place as you sew them in.
I went with a very straight-walled appearance for this basket, so I simply pinched my pine needle bundle on top of my previous layer, then sewed it into place.
However, you can create almost any shape with your coiling.
