Foraging Walks

Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to take walks with 2 foraging experts. First was with Wildman Steve Brill in Redding, CT on a parcel of private land. The habitat included some open, disturbed areas and some mixed forest. In the open area, we spotted some bay laurel, fox grass, wood sorrell, black birch, and garlic mustard. Steve Brill discussed acorns, including differences between white and red oaks, and how to process the nuts into something edible. There were also some hickory trees, but no nuts this year. We headed into the woods to seek out some mushrooms, but the dry weather was working against us. We came across a few parasol and honey mushrooms, along with a log-full of pear-shaped puffballs. At a second location, we dug some ramp bulbs. Robert, Gillian and I stopped at one more location on our own to gather some winecaps, bear's head tooth, pear-shaped puffballs, and sulfur shelf mushrooms.

 

For a Last Green Valley Walktober event, we met Russ Cohen in Southbridge, MA for another walk. It took place at Westville Lake Recreation area, and covered a lot of habitats, including riverside, wood's edge, forest, and open grassy areas. Russ Cohen covered autumn olives, grapes, mulberries, hen of the woods mushroom, sumac, pokeweed, day lily, burdock, garlic mustard, and many others. We ended up bartering some jellies for a wonderful hen of the woods mushroom.