What do you forage?

[DelcoMama82]

Blackberry, elderberry, beauty berry. some dewberry that is getting harder to find. Very few fruit as mostly pine or hardwoods in this area. There's always the mullian, purslane, dandelions, ferns, etc. If you know where, there is also some areas with old asparagus growing along ditches. Apparently used to be a "crop" in this area. Now it's mostly feed corn, cotton, wheat, soybean, P-nuts. If you hunt, we have fat & healthy deer, turkey & dove. Plus good fishing with our waterways. Just need a license to partake.

Sounds awesome. What are beauty berries? Never heard of those.

 

[DelcoMama82]

you can try to get your own morels going by taking any rinse water and scattering it around your property. keep doing it and eventually they may show up.

Fungi | Anthive

A mushroom I'd never seen before...

www.anthive.com

purselane is very easy to grow here. i don't try to get rid of it all for that reason. emergency greens in case of the apocalypse.

Wow! Very cool!
We have lots of mushrooms around our property, I’ve always been afraid to try any in case they’re not what they appear to be.

 

[DelcoMama82]

We have a small chunk of land but enough to forage some on and I know where things are down the seldom used railroad tracks.

There are the invasive Himalayan and cut leaf blackberries that we cant eradicate, so I pick them. We also have Pacific training blackberries. Then there are the thimbleberries, serviceberries, salal, Oregon grapes, and Pacific crabapples. Those native apples are tiny things smaller than a dime but make great jelly.

The blackberries I also pick young leaves to use for tea.

I have a stand of cattails I've been trying to encourage so I'm careful how much I take. Nettles grow in several spots.

I collect beaver downed willow and alder trees for kindling. I trim willow for craft use.

Ive been using dandelion and plantain a lot the last few years. I dried a bunch of brackenfern last year but never got around to making a salve with it.

We have hawthorn, but I usually leave all the berries for the wild birds as winter food.

We love to go razor clamming and fishing.

I know there is more but I can't think at moment.

I can’t believe there is more, that’s a hell of a lot right there! You’re pretty much living off the land!!!

 

[DelcoMama82]

I know places I can pick wild plums, apples, elderberries, blackberries, and thimbleberries (for those who don't know it's like a wild raspberry).

I also pick wild yarrow and use it for beestings, cuts, bugbites, and such.

Are those wild fruits growing on their own or abandoned by previous owners?

 

[DelcoMama82]

i find it interesting to contemplate living someplace where you could plant out fruit tree starts and berry bushes of various kinds with some expectation that you might eventually be able to go back and get some harvest from them. around here that is a real gamble with all the deer grazing and once you start putting up protective fencing then you aren't able to do that very stealthily on other people's property or at the parks...

It’s the only way I’ve ever known. Suburbia!
You either grow your own, pay for what you pick, or buy from the grocery store. We’d have to get away a bit to find wild and free anything.
We do get lucky with things at the state park which is pretty close to us. But the park rangers drive around and tell us the newest rules like only use bags, no buckets, only collect what we are planning on eating at the park.

 

[flowerbug]

It’s the only way I’ve ever known. Suburbia!
You either grow your own, pay for what you pick, or buy from the grocery store. We’d have to get away a bit to find wild and free anything.
We do get lucky with things at the state park which is pretty close to us. But the park rangers drive around and tell us the newest rules like only use bags, no buckets, only collect what we are planning on eating at the park.

i guess i understand their point on the latter part, but bag vs bucket makes little sense to me, ah well...

and it is not something i've ever had happen to me when out picking but i think that is mostly because i've hardly ever picked in a park where rangers are around. i can't even remember the last time when fishing i ran into a ranger either to check the license or anything. when i headed out to do things it was into the wild.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Here, they don't allow picking in the parks. They even won't allow you to stick a pretty shell or rock in your pocket to take home. At least, that's what the signs say.

 

[flowerbug]

i know, i see a lot of waste here too at particular places, but since i know they spray the trees i don't even think of turning in and asking. i like apples, but i really don't like all the stuff they spray to get "pretty apples" which may sell better but i'm quite ok working with less than perfect apples here.

 

[Alaskan]

For some reason we kind of missed mushrooms this fall.

Odd weather, there just weren't many.... or I missed them...

 

[flowerbug]

i foraged a piece of cold pizza this morning from the fridge, but i doubt that really counts.

the other day i met someone at the local park who was foraging mushrooms. i wish i'd have thought to talk to her more about that but she was a bit distracted by some guy acting weird and was warning me about that and so i was telling her that if she wanted me to go with her back to where her car was parked so she could leave if she wanted but she was going to keep foraging for a bit. when i left the park the guy was over near the restrooms so i stopped and told her what was going on and then left. like a dummy i didn't ask at all about how she was doing on the mushroom hunt.