There’s food in them there hills. Not enough to live off of for long unless you’ve got serious skills and experience; but absolutely enough to add value, flavor, scarce nutrients, and variety to a diet. Foraging is also a great way to really get to know the land you’re on; and that has a value of its own. However, the goal is not to injure yourself while collecting this bounty. Here are some tips to make your foraging trip safe and pleasant.
Foraging for the right plant
Of course you know that you need to understand what your target plant looks like. If you’ve not spent much time paying attention to plants (or fungi) though, you might not realize how easy some plants are to mistake for their relatives.
But if they’re so closely related and one is food, surely the other is ok too? All the NO. The very hemlock that Socrates used to commit suicide has the distinctive flower and leaf shapes of the edible carrot and parsnip.
This member of the carrot family has killed many people who thought they were foraging wild carrot or parsnips.**
This one’s safe to forage…if your ID skills are sharp. ***
So here’s a critical takeaway: Know not only how to identify your target, but how to discriminate it from similar problem plants. The best way to do this is to get your information not just by looking at images of your target, but by reading foraging guides that address these problems. I keep one of these for my local area and recommend this. There are free online guides, so another choice is to get expert now.
Pay attention to microhabitat and timing
Finding the target you intend foraging is more than knowing that it likes hardwood forests or freshwater lakes. Morel mushrooms are a great foraging find, and they inhabit those hardwood forests. Fifty weeks out of the year though, you’ve got no shot at finding them. Ditto if you try hilltops or under cedar trees. They like slopes and valleys, under elms and apple trees. You find them on the first week or so after it hits 70 F in the spring. Well, other people find them that way. I hit my woods at the right time and place, and all I find is lots and lots of deer sign. Which brings me to the next point…
Look out for foraging competitors
When I walk the mowed trails at The Place, I never find ripe blackberries. I find unripe blackberries by the score at the right time of year, and lots of deer and turkey sign along the trails all year long. Gee, I wonder what happens to the ripe blackberries?
So there are two parts to watching for competitors when foraging. One is you get more success foraging in spots the critters don’t hit as hard. If birds are the competitors, check undersides of branches. If it’s deer, step off the easy trails, and be sure to hit the hillsides. It appears they don’t like to stand on a tilt to browse.
The other part is to not get into conflict with the competitors (human or beast), especially by surprise. Even a skunk will totally ruin your day if surprised, and moose or bear will ruin your day with blood on top. If you’re allergic to insects, keep an eye out for them too. Bees and wasps are often attracted to deadfall fruit. And those squirrels! Ok, the squirrels just lose. They will cuss and throw nuts though.
Who’s a pretty moose? Ok, no moose are pretty. I may have been tempted to forage the wild carrot in the foreground…but moose are not a joke; they will charge and trample. Don’t fight out of your weight class.
Don’t overfocus on your foraging target
Have you ever run your hand into a thistle or stinging nettle because you were only paying attention to what you were reaching for? I have. Not recommended. If you’re that careless with poison ivy, you may not even know until a day or two later when the rash starts to rise. Harvesting cattails? Leeches like the same kind of water. They’re not even medicinal leeches; just creepy bloodsuckers.
Oh no, a spider! Nope, that harvestman’s perfectly harmless. It’s the stinging nettle you need to worry about, with each of those tiny hairs set to inject a a massively itchy, rash-inducing toxin at the slightest brush. Know the threats; they don’t always wear signs.*
Other landscapes will have other sorts of threats. Whatever your landscape, knowing the local red flags will make your foraging experience much nicer. Covering all exposed skin (however light the sleeves) and insect repellent avoids a lot of misery too.
* Leslie Seaton from Seattle, WA, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
** Djtanng [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
*** Homer Edward Price [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
Truthful article Spice, thus why I put away long term storage foods and know how to garden. Plenty of trouble out there for very few calories of food “Gained”.
BTW Stinging nettle is actually a really good foraging food. One of the earliest wild crafted sources of Vitamin C available aside from pine needle tea (steeped NOT boiled unless you want turpentine)
I’ve read that about stinging nettle, Michael, but I’ve never been so motivated as to try it. I had some bad experiences with stinging nettle as a kid. The Place is full of wild blackberries, which are my go-to wild Vit C source as they can be either dehydrated or canned. Dehydrated they’re pretty seedy, but make a very nice tea. Or one can pulverize them good and make fruit leather. There are a couple of things I forage, but they’re pretty easy targets: black walnuts, hickory nuts, blackberry, mulberry, and autumn olive. Morels if I can beat the deer to mine, but that mostly doesn’t happen. Their favorite bedding valley is my best morel valley. *mutter cuss mutter*
are you guys ok?
We are fine, we have been working 70 hours a week which leaves little time for blogging.