How is your summer foraging going?

[Gary Peters]

I would be interested in hearing about what everyone has been finding out in nature. I have been on an investigation frenzy this year, looking for foods and medicinal herbs. My daughter Sierra has been out with me a couple of times collecting wild flowers and hanging them to dry in her room. She is beginning to amass quite a knowledge about medicine herbs. She wants to be ready for this years primitive gathering with some of her own remedies to share.
I found fire fungus for the first time ever the other day! I wasn't even sure it truly existed in Maine until there it was, a big old blob of it sticking out of the base of a golden birch. It was pouring rain at the time, so I just collected some and brought it home to dry out a bit before testing it's ability to hold a coal. I must say it was pretty impressive, even the tiniest coal would catch and grow. It is a prize gift from the mother, and one I will always appreciate. Stinging nettle also, I had never actually seen nettle before, probably had stepped on it a hundred times, however I never new what it was, or how many uses it could provided. That also was a good addition to my primitive knowledge set.
So how about anyone else? What new source of wonder have you found out there in the bush's?
Any lucky morel patches been uncovered yet? Or possibly something totally unexpected?

[Arthur Haines]

Gary,

I was just out foraging with a student/friend this week. We gathered Laportea canadensis (wood-nettle) and Apios americana (ground-nut) from a floodplain forest to add to a meal of Zizania palustris (northern wild rice) and Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem-artichoke sunflower). Now that the weather has improved a little bit, this weekend will be a big push for collecting the pollen-bearing flowers of Typha latifolia (broad-leaved cattail)--it makes the best bread! I'm also collecting the flowers of Rhus hirta (staghorn sumac) for medicine. This species of sumac is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial, with activity against several different types of pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Glad to hear you are outside and active. Best wishes.

Arthur

[Trevanna]

I only got a tiny, piddly amount of cattail pollen this year (which I must admit was a HUGE disappointment since I'd been looking forward to it for, oh, 12 months) because the rain soddened and washed away and molded nearly all the pollen in my area before I could collect it. However, I have been making a huge push to learn about mushrooms and am really excited for an expert to confirm my identifications so that I can start munching on them as well.

That being said, it's milkweed pod collecting time here, and I'm really looking forward to lactofermenting a bunch of milkweed pods-- here's my recipe if you're interested:
For 1 pint:
1.5 cups of pods
about 3/4 tablespoon of sea salt for a cup of water
a head or two of garlic

Harvest pods. Dissolve salt in water. Fill a pint with pods and peeled garlic cloves. Add brine to cover them (make up more if you need it), and weigh down the mix with a weight on top. The pods want to float, so the weighing helps a lot with this one. Let sit in a room-temperature room for a few days, and when they seem like the fermentation is underway, store them at about 55 degrees-- Either in a root celler, a special fermentation fridge set to a warmer temperature than usual, or just a hole in the ground! You can also store them in a regular fridge.

Yum! In the past two days, I also harvested a ton of beach pea pods, tendrils, and flowers; rose petals; amelanchier berries; blueberries; bunchberries; unopened milkweed flowers; puffball mushrooms; pin cherries; evening primrose flowers and leaves; and a handful of medicinal plants. I'm going to make a big push to harvest and process a bunch of food this week and then again at the end of August when the berries and nuts are ripe. Here's to the healthy, delicious, and economical nature of wild foods! Let me know what you're all harvesting right now so that I can make sure not to forget anything that's ripe and ready!
Trevanna

[Nick Spadaro]

Pin cherries and amelanchier berries!? i didnt notice they were out yet, thanks for the heads up! Ive canned 20 jars of blueberry jam in the last two weeks and it seems like its time to finish up with that and move onto some more feral fruits. Cant wait for nannyberry and autumn olive, those are the bomb diggidy.

[Mike]

High Bush Bueberries on three mile pond are still going strong. Looking forward to makin' jam with the fam this weekend. Retting basswood fibers and peeling bark (White Ash and White Pine) for baskets. Making an ash "blickey" in anticipation of NNNNAAAAAANNNNNNY berry and autumn olive! Hoping to go sweet grass foraging and ricing with Arthur soon!

[Nick Spadaro]

I friggen love nannyberry, its the wierdest fruit ever but its so cool! 24 days and counting untill i leave for maine

[Trevanna]

Nick! Great to hear from you. In case you're missing out on other stuff, I'm currently harvesting:

plantain seeds (making more lacto-fermented capers with those!)
raspberries
sumac flowers for drying (up here they're perfect)
violets, goldenrod flowers, red clover blossoms, meadowsweet blossoms

But I want to know what I'm missing! Let me know. And yes, I too am SO EXCITED for nannyberry. I love it so much. Yes. yes. YESssss!

[Nick Spadaro]

Well right now were just going out of what i call "elderberry season." So up north your probably still in it! Its when the elderberry is flowering (not fruiting) and it makes it super easy to spot when your driving or walkin around. And now that you know where it is you can mark it for later to come back for the berries for wine or what have you. OR (this is my favorite) chop it down now when you can see it and make hand drill spindles out of it! (its the second best hd spindle in the east.)

Tomarrow im gonna cut a ton (litterly) of cattail leaves and dry them. then resoak them to finish a hat i started years ago and make some baskets but that can be done during the whole summer but i figure the leaves are fully grown now.

I need to find a good raspberry patch. ive found enough for snaking but not enough to actually build up a surplus to can or anything. Ive been so busy with blueberries i hadnt spent the time wondering around lookng for rasberrys. What are you doing with yours? im gonna post some pictures right now as we speak of the limited stuff ive been working on. work sucks only 3 more weeks and then im a full time primitive

[Trevanna]

It's 1am. I have to feed the chickens at 7. "Why, that's only 6 hours from now, Trevanna!", you might remark; "Shouldn't you be asleep, dreaming of nannyberries?" And in fact I SHOULD be asleep, however, I made the Wise, Wise Choice to start the long and arduous process of canning 4 gallons of food when I got home on my bike from harvesting said food at 9 o'clock tonight. SO, I'm still up. And will be up for a while. Feel free to call.

HowEVER! I got about 4 gallons of blueberries, cooked down to 2, as well as tons of milkweed pods to use for capers and canning, more milkweed flowers that I'm canning (as we speak, in fact!), chokecherries, sumac and... the crowning glory.... black raspberries! I'd never had one. They're amazing.

As for raspberries, I haven't harvested a whole lot myself. When we left our campsite last week, the raspberries near there were only just starting to ripen, so I'm hoping to be able to get some when I go back tomorrow for the rest of August. I've used some in a raspberry/amelanchier jam, and eaten a whole lot straight off the bush. Has anyone here ever tried to make raspberry fruit leather?