Foraging

This beautiful plant above is comfrey. I was going to plant this in my herb garden because it has so many wonderful uses, but it just didn’t make the cut this year. Imagine my surprise when I found so much of it while foraging in my very own woods! I’ve also found wild grapes, mullein, nettles, sassafras, dock, and that’s not even a fraction of the medicinal/edible plants I’ve found. Luckily, I know what comfrey looks, smells, and feels like or I would have passed right over it. The most important thing while foraging is that you be able to positively identify the plants you are planning to use. If you can’t identify you can’t forage. I mean you could, but it might not end well.

I started studying plants years ago when I first started gardening. Not necessarily to use them for food or medicine, but to know what I should or shouldn’t be letting take up space in my garden. So it mostly started with identifying common weeds in the garden. I read books and watched videos about common weeds. I would then go outside and see if I recognized any of the plants they discussed. I did. It started out with a handful of plants, at the time I was living in a semi- urban area with not much in the way of woods around me so there wasn’t a lot of useful plants in the area I could forage. So I thought! I continued to read the books and watch the videos memorizing characteristics of all the plants I was seeing.

Fast forward to about 2 years ago. My mother moved to the country, it was about that time the county I was living in was giving me hell about homeschooling my son (saving for a different blog post) and I was ready to move as well. I ended up buying  a house not too far from her with 6 acres and potential to add more. What really sold me on this place is that it’s surrounded by woods, but also has two large fields on either side of the woods. I thought I knew my stuff when it came to wild plants  but I, in fact, did not. With so much new area to cover came a lot of new wild plants. I took botany classes and purchased many foraging, wild edibles, and botany books. It paid off. 

I have a garden. A rather nice garden. I have a lot of  pretty flowers, but I mainly focus on planting food and herbs. There is just something special about growing your own food, however, there’s also something to be said about the earth naturally providing food and medicine for us. Why not also take advantage of that? Here I’m going to give you some foraging tips, most of these things I learned on my own and now I’d like to share this information, my most important tip being: please use common sense while foraging.

• Most plants have some use.

When I first got into this I think my biggest shock was finding out just how many plants I had passed by on a daily basis had beneficial uses. Plants I only saw as weeds for a long time actually had the power to heal. Almost every time I walk into my woods I find a new plant or mushroom I didn’t see before. Over two years time that adds up to A LOT of plants, most of them being useful in some way. So there is a lot of area to cover and lots of plants to familiarize yourself with.

• You can forage during any season.

Sure, we probably all have our preferences. Mine being right now, I’m actually antsy to finish this post and go out to forage. Wet rainy spring mornings, that’s what I like. Foraging doesn’t have to stop when the seasons change. I was foraging wild mint and rose hips in the dead of winter last year. As time passes you will learn not only where to look for plants, but when! Sometimes it’s better to catch plants as they are dying off, others are better to forage while fresh. Timing is everything, as they say.

• It doesn’t stop at identifying.

So you’re 100% sure you know the identity of a plant, now what? Well, it helps to know its uses and which part of the plant to use. That’s right, you can’t just dig up an entire plant and think it’s going to heal you. There are many plants that have both beneficial and toxic parts. Pokeweed for instance, the roots, leaves, and berries are toxic, however, the young shoots can be consumed after cooking. It’s very important that you know not just the benefits of a plant, but also the dangers.

• Plant ID Apps.

This very well may be an unpopular opinion, but when it comes to foraging I discourage the use of identification apps. My two main reasons being: 1. inaccuracy could be fatal. These apps may give people false confidence when it comes to identifying a potentially harmful plant. I added plantsnap last summer out of curiosity and while it did correctly identify a few plants around my garden, foraging was a different story, it incorrectly identified horsenettle (poisonous and belonging to the nightshade family) as a type of pepper plant. Had I not known better that could have been disastrous for me. 2. The point is to educate yourself. I’ve yet to come across an app that actually breaks down ways to accurately identify a plant. That means most likely you are taking pictures of a plant for the app to identify but you yourself most likely wouldn’t be able to identify it  again. Not useful if you’re foraging in the wilderness with no phone signal. The point is (for me anyway) to be able to not only identify plants but to know HOW and what to look for. I will add though, these types of apps probably do come in handy for gardening. If you’re still a beginner and you accidentally mix up seedlings or forget what you planted, I can see how an ID app would work in those scenarios without negative consequences.

•STAY SAFE! 

Obviously don’t eat anything you aren’t 100% sure about and wear gloves before touching an unknown plant, but I’m talking about safety in your surroundings. I only forage on my own property or in public parks/forests. I take a knife to cut leaves, but I will cut something else if I have to! I usually carry a small backpack with “tools” in it like baggies or small containers to store plants in, sheers, a knife, twine, and most importantly gloves. I also let my husband (or whoever is here) know what area I’m going to, I even made a hand drawn map for this purpose. There are wild animals, poachers, and many risks of injury in the woods. Please, especially in the country, do not trespass to forage. Once you are on someone else’s property you are fair game. Not to mention if you are on someone’s property foraging, some of those plant may have been treated with pesticides. If you are going deep in the woods make sure you bring water. I only walk about a mile and a half in my woods (daily) but I regret it any time I forget water. For me, foraging is very relaxing, but don’t ever get too relaxed and forget where you are. ALWAYS be mindful of your surroundings!