Questions for experienced food foragers!

[ForagerNewb]

Hey all,

I'm doing a research project on wild food foraging. I have a couple questions! Any input or responses would be much appreciated.

1) Describe your life (day-to-day) routine as a wild food forager.

2) What do you currently forage? And how long have you been foraging?

3) What do you think the future of wild food foraging will look like?

4) What are some small- and large-scale issues you find with food foraging?

5) What are your thoughts on climate change and food foraging? How do you think and feel this would affect foraging?

6) What are some interests or concerns you have about foraging? (e.g. could be relating to the government, climate change, economy, etc.)

Any other thoughts you might have would be helpful.

Thanks!

Robbin

 

[Tony]

Hey Robbin,

IT's good of you to think of us and it would be great if you could introduce yourself in the welcome and introductions forum, we encourage people to participate rather than just use the forums, this as as first post is fine but please don't just use the place as a information resources, i'm sure there's plenty that you can share with us as well.

All the best with it, Tony

 

[ManFriday4]

Hey all,

I'm doing a research project on wild food foraging. I have a couple questions! Any input or responses would be much appreciated.

1) Describe your life (day-to-day) routine as a wild food forager.

2) What do you currently forage? And how long have you been foraging?

3) What do you think the future of wild food foraging will look like?

4) What are some small- and large-scale issues you find with food foraging?

5) What are your thoughts on climate change and food foraging? How do you think and feel this would affect foraging?

6) What are some interests or concerns you have about foraging? (e.g. could be relating to the government, climate change, economy, etc.)

Any other thoughts you might have would be helpful.

Thanks!

Robbin

I have been Foraging for about 26 years.

It used to be mainly nettles for soup/teas.

I now forage the following plants for various uses including food,, crafting, medicines & fire use.

Linden flowers (tea/medicinal)
Horsetail (medicinal/ tonic supplement)
Nettles (leaf, seed, fibre)
Cleaver (medicines)
Plantain ( food, medicinal)
Dandelion (foodl)
Duck potato (grow and plant for conservation & future food) staple.
Typha Latifolia (Grow for future food and plant into the wild) many food uses.
Sweet grass (for ceremonial use)
Various mints (teas & medicines)
Silver weed (roots are edible staple)
Lesser celandine (roots are an edible staple)
Jews ear fungus (collect and dry)
Chicken of the woods collect and dry)
Morells (collect & dry.
Elderberries ( make cough syrup & liquers)
Elderflower (cordial & sorbet & dry the flowers. For medicinal use)
Comfrey (collect in the wild and cultivate it for topical medicinal uses)
Blackberry (cordial & Liqueurs)
Sweet chestnust (roast and eat)
Acorns (primarily to grow, but could be famine food)
Beech nuts (see acorns)
Cob nuts (cultivate them & collectbin the wild. Roast and grind them.)
Rose hips (Syrup)
Crab apples (Jelly)
Meadowsweat (medicines)
Willow (artists charcoal)
Alder ( field wound treatment from inner bark)
Lime bast, (cordage)
Pine fatwood.
Birch bark (for making boxes & timder)
Common hogweed seed (to flavour bisquits - orange flavour)- warning expert identificication- umbilifer plant. A mistake could kill you.
Sloes(Sloe Gin)
Red, white & black currants (jams, jellies, liquers & dreied).
Burdock (staple & medicine)

I can identify all the above, plus many more on sight and based on habitat, in flower and dormant.

i collect other plants too i havent mentioned.

Life is busy.

Climate change will impact germination of many plats & is already putting stress on many environments.

Someone has just produced a foraging map for Cornwall on the pretext it could help people during the costnof living crisis. I suspect it will take many people out of the gene pool. We don't have enough wilderness for people to go denuding it of food plants, because people over pick.

 

[Woody girl]

Busy collecting autumn bounty on a daily basis right now. Elderberry syrup is my main concern right now, making as much as possible to keep my health up over winter.
In a week or so it will be rosehip for rosehip syrup ditto.
Blackberries for the freezer, and also blackberry syrup which is delicious, and full of vitamin c.
Hazel nuts when I can find them.
Herbs, both wild and cultivated are drying in net bags on the clothes airer, and being steeped in oil or vodka for medicinal use teas , or flavouring.
Haw berries are something I shall add to my repotoire this year, I'm usualy too exhausted to bother with them much, but I know they are supposed to support heart health. I have some spring flowers and leaves dried, so I guess I need to add the berries too.

 

[Toddy]

My herb drawers are full, thankfully the last to go in was the Rosenoble.
I picked some of the rosehips today, and pared them down with the tattie peeler (I bought the one from Victorinox ) This totally saves me any fussing with the little hairs. I dry those pieces and they last until next year. I can make tea, syrup, or add to cakes as I choose.

Elderberries are done, I just made Rob from them, but I dried a load for dye too.
I've made a dozen jars of Rowan and Apple jelly this week, and another dozen of apples fried in butter and spices for pies and crumbles. The rhubarb made that up to thirty jars.

The sage has put out a great flush of new leaves, so I am tempted to pick and freeze them, like using and keeping bayleaves. Less fuss than trying to dry and store, and they're handy like that too.

I haven't picked brambles, I'm still awash with rasps and rhubarb, apples, pears and plums.
Tempted to pick and freeze a load of rowans though because there's such a bumper crop, but if that follows through though the birds are going to need them.
I did gather the seed pods from the Iris (roasted they make coffee, but eaten as an anti inflammatory) last week. Bit of a footer getting them out of the pods, but I now have a jar load tucked away.

Came across a flush of self seeded mustard and picked those, again a footer to get the seeds out, but it's done. Taste brilliant too Poppies are hanging heads down in a paper bag and it looks like I'll get maybe 100g of seeds I'll keep some of the straw too
The flax I left long enough to ripen the bolls so I'll get the seeds from those too as well as the fibres.

I gathered the wheat, oats and barley, and it's in a great bunch, but has dried really well, I need to thresh and winnow that.

Last things will probably be the brambles and then the quince. The quince is bending under the weight of fruit this year.

Be interesting to hear what herbs other people put up though ?

Other than that, I have pulled of the outside leaves of the flag iris and they're drying nicely, the cattails from the typha minima in the pond have been cut and are drying for firemaking. The bittersweet is ripening beautifully, though I usually just gather the berries for decoration. The mugwort has bloomed again, so I have more drying. Lady's bedstraw is going over and I've been pulling the stems to dry further as they do so. Scents of Summer, the bedstraw, lavender, roses and melissa. Lovely
I have three different willows in the garden but I'll leave those until leaves are off.

 

[Woody girl]

Yesterday was lovely and sunny, so I went out to see what I could find.
Conkers for soap making.
Evening primrose seeds, that I can hopefully grow in my own garden next year.
Mullion leaves. This is a real find, as I havnt found any in all my years of foraging, but I found two first year plants, so took a couple of leaves off each to dry for mullion tea, medicinal use. I'll be back to them next year for more leaves flowers and seeds.
Hazel nuts! Yeah! Two pockets full.
Sweet chestnuts, very small, but dozens of good ripe ones. Filled the foraging pouch with those.
Apples from someone's gate, now slowly cooking in the slow cooker for apple butter.
4 nice quince from the same box.
And at another gate, someone was selling home made jam, chutney, and cider vinegar, along with other bric a brac for charity donation, so I got a punnet of shallots, apple cyder vinegar, thinsulate gloves, and a pair of rohan walking trousers in my size for a fiver's donation.
Not a bad haul for a gentle Sunday stroll.
Also saw a dipper, yellow wagtail, two goosander, a kingfisher, and long tailed tit.

 

[Pattree]

Envy you the kingfisher!!!!
They should be on the brook at the back of our house but haven’t been for decades.

Scavenging more than foraging: Last week I tutored my middlest daughter and her man in how to prune a mature street Rowan outside their house without destroying its form ( rather than the universal “council haircut”). Yesterday I’ve received some lovely short but straight stems.

 

[ManFriday4]

a kingfisher, and long tailed tit.

When I lived on the boat, kingfishers, herons & cormorant were a daily visitation.

I miss living on the water. But I have friends still on their boats.

 

[Woody girl]

I love the long tailed tit, such a cutie of a bird, normaly seen in small flocks, so it was unusual to see just one.
Managed to find some more conkers, which I dry and grind to a powder, which can then be used to make a soap liquid after straining out the bits with a bit of muslin.
Round here, it's been a bad year for conkers. I have two trees that I visit, and have about half my normal amount, and they are smaller than normal.
I keep a foraging diary, so I can keep an eye on yearly yields, new discoveries, and where the good things are.
One thing I've found after looking back a few years, the timing is now different . Not vastly, but often a week or so earlier in some cases.
This year for instance, all the blueberries, ( or worts as they are called localy, ) were finished by mid July, whereas I normaly collect them late July or early August.
Consequently, no worts in the freezer this year.

 

[Pattree]

I love the long tailed tit, such a cutie of a bird, normaly seen in small flocks,

Yeah they always seem so happy/busy. We seem to be on some kind of foraging route. We never see any particular flock for more than a day as they work their way across the country side.

We haven’t had the fieldfares yet. I give red berried holly to friends around Halloween. This stays bright fresh red right through 21/12 to 01/01. However I frequently forget to harvest my own. It only takes one visit by a flock of fieldfares and I’m left with greenery to decorate the house. Ho as they say, hum.

 

[Woody girl]

Yeah they always seem so happy/busy. We seem to be on some kind of foraging route. We never see any particular flock for more than a day as they work their way across the country side.

We haven’t had the fieldfares yet. I give red berried holly to friends around Halloween. This stays bright fresh red right through 21/12 to 01/01. However I frequently forget to harvest my own. It only takes one visit by a flock of fieldfares and I’m left with greenery to decorate the house. Ho as they say, hum.

That's a good tip about the Holly. I wondered if it would keep long enough if harvested this time of year. Do you keep it in water? Or just a cool place such as a shed untill needed?

 

[Toddy]

I cut the branches and put their ends into a bucket of water. I keep that in the greenhouse until I make up the Christmas decorations.
If I don't the woodpigeons eat all the berries. There's no shortage of food for the woodpigeons I hasten to add. The ivy is going to be absolutely laden just shortly.

M

 

[Pattree]

@Woody girl
I wrap the cut stems in wet paper towel as soon as I’ve cut them and give them to friends to take home. Otherwise they go straight into water. I’m sure you know that if you don’t, the water will move up the xylem and leave air spaces. Once that happens to any extent the stems can’t take up water. As long as the flow is more or less unbroken holly cut in 31st Oct will last to New Year - well, my common holly will - varieties vary.

One of my friends has shown me pics of my own berried holly, cut in October, on her Christmas table. This particular friend heats her house like an oven.

@Toddy. The ivy has indeed set well around here. We see a lot of golden hornets around when they are flowering. They’ve done a great job this year. I expect to see wood pigeons and stock doves dangling and hauling on the stems like some sort of fluffy fruit crop.