Foraging is my main passion at the moment, but I'm quite new to it (as in trying to become an expert). I'm wondering if anyone could link me or list all of the growing plants in winter that can be eaten? Summer is a feast of wild food, but winter plants is something I'd like more expertise on if possible.
Wild Winter Foods
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Winter is a dormant time, meaning plant growth ceases.
After flowering and seed production plants will spend the autumnal months building up their energy stores, in the form of starch, for the following spring.
This energy is stored underground in roots and tubers, think potatoes. Therefore during Winter you will not be foraging for the plant but for its root/tuber.
You need to study the plants in all aspects of their growth. From the fresh spring growth to the autumn die-back to know where to dig up the starch store.
Collins Gems books have some excellent guides to edibles and the books fit in your pocket.
If your serious about learning how to gather Wild Winter Foods it's gonna take awhile but this IS the best time to start.
After flowering and seed production plants will spend the autumnal months building up their energy stores, in the form of starch, for the following spring.
This energy is stored underground in roots and tubers, think potatoes. Therefore during Winter you will not be foraging for the plant but for its root/tuber.
You need to study the plants in all aspects of their growth. From the fresh spring growth to the autumn die-back to know where to dig up the starch store.
Collins Gems books have some excellent guides to edibles and the books fit in your pocket.
If your serious about learning how to gather Wild Winter Foods it's gonna take awhile but this IS the best time to start.
Thank you kennyboy. I have Food For Free and Mushrooms from Collins Gem. And It shows 3 edible plants for January. 1 is found in the sea, 1 is a mushroom, and the other is chickweed. But I'll have to find some other information somewhere on roots in winter.
Is it even possible to have a good diet of wild plants in winter, or would hunting have the be the main focus?
Is it even possible to have a good diet of wild plants in winter, or would hunting have the be the main focus?
andyn
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
A good diet on just winter plant growth?... I would personally say no.
Especially if we have heavy frosts or snow - making it even more difficult to access plants. Also the variety of proteins, carbs, vitamins etc are heavily reduced.
If you were to add dried meats/fish, leathered fruits and nuts collected during late summer and autumn then you would have a better balance.
Especially if we have heavy frosts or snow - making it even more difficult to access plants. Also the variety of proteins, carbs, vitamins etc are heavily reduced.
If you were to add dried meats/fish, leathered fruits and nuts collected during late summer and autumn then you would have a better balance.
Freshly gathered? I'd say no.
The traditional answer would have been to gather and store/preserve during the abundant months in order to provide food through the lean months of winter
Not as many as you'd think, and they're all compromised by frost.
Jelly ears, velvet shank, oyster fungi.........in favourable areas. Not every edible grows every where.
I'm vegetarian, and I know my area, and without some industrious gathering and storing I'd still be damned hungry through winter on my diet if I only foraged for food. Cropped foods are a different matter.
Kale and cabbages and sprouts are good even frosted, but there's so little calorific value to them that they're best seen as taste, minerals, vitamins and roughage, than as the main food. Bit like the seaveggies really. Necessary but like rabbits you'd starve on them.
Tubers, nuts, grains, & if you're desperate roasted inner bark. Some of the rose hips might still be edible, just, and the yew ariels.
Water plants are a better bet, reedmace roots are starch rich, but you have to find an area where they grow (and you are allowed to gather).
There are plants in winter time we can eat, but there's not a whole lot of anything but the ones we've mentioned for day after day after day.
cheers,
Toddy
Jelly ears, velvet shank, oyster fungi.........in favourable areas. Not every edible grows every where.
I'm vegetarian, and I know my area, and without some industrious gathering and storing I'd still be damned hungry through winter on my diet if I only foraged for food. Cropped foods are a different matter.
Kale and cabbages and sprouts are good even frosted, but there's so little calorific value to them that they're best seen as taste, minerals, vitamins and roughage, than as the main food. Bit like the seaveggies really. Necessary but like rabbits you'd starve on them.
Tubers, nuts, grains, & if you're desperate roasted inner bark. Some of the rose hips might still be edible, just, and the yew ariels.
Water plants are a better bet, reedmace roots are starch rich, but you have to find an area where they grow (and you are allowed to gather).
There are plants in winter time we can eat, but there's not a whole lot of anything but the ones we've mentioned for day after day after day.
cheers,
Toddy
As said, you will get slim pickings this time of the year. Kill a Lamb and cook with greens and you would be OK, but you will starve to death trying to survive on wild plants etc and that goes for most of the year to be honest.
re Toddy's advice - ALl good, but when looking at water plants, be really sure you have water parsnip and not water Hemlock (Cow Bane) . The latter will almost certainly kill you, and in a most unpleasent way. becoming an expert forager is a good aim. I used to walk in the country with an expert. She was also an expert in mushrooms, whcih is another area in which you need to be very careful. As others have stated, pickings are really slim in the winter. You need to forage in the summer/autumn and store for the winter.
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