What Every Forager Needs

I went out on this wonderfully cool Tuesday to do some maintenance on one of our letterboxing series, What Every Forager Needs in Scotland, Connecticut. I had a few reports of one of it's parts missing, and brought a replacement with me for #7: Shovel. I also checked on the logbook, and the series is doing great. Let's chat about this list of tools we use while foraging!

1. Gloves: We bring 2 sets of gloves with us when foraging, one is a heavy duty gardening glove set, the other is slightly rubberized. The heavy gloves are a bit bulky, but useful to push into berry thickets. The thinner, rubberized gloved provide excellent protection from nettle stings.

2. Containers: We save and re-use the plastic containers from the grocery store that you buy strawberries or mesclun mix in. They provide good protection for delicate berries, and keep you from mushing them up by piling them too deep.

3. Knife: Robert carries the knife. It is useful in cutting shoots from things like sumac, japanese knotweed, and cattails. He also uses it to cut open fruits for identification. I don't think it is anything fancy, but it is bigger than a pocketknife.

4. Water: We carry water for obvious reasons, like drinking, but also for washing roots and rinsing out our mouths if we taste something yucky. We use those stainless steel refillable bottles, and carry a few with us.

5. Magnifier: This tool comes in handy to positively identify certain edibles. Some wild foods have poisonous look-alikes, and the only way to distinguish the two is by looking for tiny hairs on stems, or holes in leaves. Milkweed shoots look exactly like dogbane shoots in spring, but one is very good to eat and the other will make you sick!

6. Bug spray: Mosquitoes and ticks can ruin anyone's hiking adventure. Deep, moist woods and marshes breed the mozzies, and open fields and grassy areas hide the ticks.

7. Shovel: We carry a small gardening shovel, one with a narrow, pointed tip. It is great to dig up roots, and we have used it to dig entire plants to bring home. Some people carry a folding camp shovel which has a much wider blade. Even Gillian carries a little toy shovel.

8. Books: We only carry a few books with us, but our library at home is growing. We have 35+ foraging books, some more herbal use and identification books, a bunch of cookbooks about wild edibles, and some preserving and jellying books for wild foods. Our favorite books that are worth the carrying weight are Samuel Thayer's two books "Nature's Garden" and "The Forager's Harvest". We also like Russ Cohen's lightweight book "Wild Plants I have Known. . . and Eaten". Another good guide with photos is "Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide" from Sterling Publishing. One of our favorites, even though it is an bit large and heavy is Steve Brill's "Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants".

9. Bag: This should be amended to "bags" since we will carry bags inside of bags. These usually cost very little in the way of weight, and we can always use more bags. We carry a few ziplocks, some plastic grocery bags, some paper bags, and some canvas or cloth bags. Ziplocks are good for dirty items like roots, so you can seal up the dirt before it gets everywhere. Plastic grocery bags are good for leafy items and bulky items. Paper bags are good for mushrooms, and things we will bring home to dry inside a paper bag anyway, like bay laurel leaves. Robert also sometimes uses a basket tied to his neck or waist to carry foods while picking, and will then dump the gathered food into a bag to bring home.

10. Mentor: We did not just one day decide we would go into the woods and eat leaves. Sometimes we would find something like blackberries and talk about how good they were, and one day we decided to try to find something Robert calls "bear onions", which I know as ramps. The species in Europe are different than what is found here, but the taste is the same. Then we got some books, and tried to find some classes, which led us to Wildman Steve Brill. We take walks with him when he is in western Connecticut, and have foraged in his classes in all seasons. Sometimes there is a chance to hear a forager speak at a library, or at a farmer's market. Next we need to try to find someone to show us some mushrooms! We like to walk with friends and casually identify plants with them, and most people we encounter show lots of enthusiasm and curiosity about edible plants, so perhaps one day we could be mentors for someone else.

Foraging Report 06/06/2010

It was another good week for foraging, and we made plenty of observations about what is in season, blooming, coming soon, and what has passed us by for this year. We went back out and picked more wild strawberries, many more this week than last. I washed and hulled them, them crushed them with a bit of sugar to make a chunky sauce for a forager's breakfast this weekend. We ate cattail-pollen pancakes with wild strawberry sauce and had home fries sautéed with ramps bulbs.

Later that day, we headed to the HerbFest in Somers, CT to hear some music by Echo Uganda and attend a Wild Edible Walk given by Russ Cohen. We already owned his book "Wild Plants I have Known . . . And Eaten" which is published by the Essex County Greenbelt Association in Massachusetts. He is a good, clear speaker, sprinkling in his own personal anecdotes and experiences about the edibles we viewed. We did not learn any new plants, but did learn some new things about the plants we already knew. He went over the basics that we observed at the site, like autumn olive, nettles, grapes, mulberries, sumac, and curly dock.

Another berry just about ripe is the mulberry. We saw a few trees in Somers, CT with dark red fruit, but the white mulberries near our house are not ready at all. Robert says they are called "tree strawberries" in Hungary. Maybe in another week we can get them

The American lindens are blooming, but the European species we are watching are not ready yet. We will gather the flowers and the lighter colored bract attached to the leaf stem to dry for a fragrant tea. We noticed the elderberry flowers are starting to bloom at the roadsides, and will go out later this week to gather the umbels for wine, fritters, and some other recipes. We gathered a big bag of pineapple weed to dry for tea. While out one afternoon, we visited our favorite ramps patch and saw the maroon flower heads growing from the shady ground. The flowers are not open yet, but will open to small white umbels.

We saw that the common milkweed is also starting to flower, and collected the tightly clustered flower heads to eat. We boiled the broccoli look-a-likes once for 7 minutes, and they tasted wonderful, a bit like silky green beans. I then tried a recipe with the cooked flowers that was like a crustless quiche and it was very quickly eaten. It is too late to search for the shoots of the milkweed, and soon we will gather the immature seed pods.

Cattails are at the flower-spike stage, where the flower spikes are still enclosed by the reeds. We cut off the flower spike, both male and female parts, and bring them home to clean. Once peeled, you can see the lower, lighter green female part and the larger, darker green male part of the flower spike. I cut them apart and cooked them for 15 minutes for cattail-on-the-cob. There is not a lot on the female parts, but the male parts provide some mealy, corn-like starch. Gillian really enjoyed these! Later, the male part of the flower spike will be covered with pollen we can collect, while the female part of the flower spike will mature into the "hot dog" spike most people recognize. I am planning on cooking a chowder with the remaining male flower spikes we have.

Foraging Report 05/31/2010

This was another good week for foraging, and we added 2 new plants to our growing list of edibles. Having a long holiday weekend also allowed us to hide 9 letterboxes.

We knew it was getting time to check for strawberries, since we transplanted a few wild plants near the house, and picked some ripe ones. We made a trip out to the Salmon River State Forest to a very accessible patch of plants growing in a field. We did get a handful, but in another week they will be better, as there were still blossoms on some plants. Along this same are were some pineapple weeds, a lovely little herb we pick for a tea. The flower heads look like chamomile flowers without petals, and smell exactly like pineapple when crushed. Some more abundant greens here are yellow wood sorrel and sheep sorrel, since they like the open area. It is here that we also planted 4 letterboxes, Foraging Sorrel Series, on an unmarked trail along the Blackledge River.

On a quick afternoon trip down to Harkness park, we picked a sackful of red clover flowers to dry for tea, found a few asparagus plants growing wild, pulled some young cattail stalks, and noted we were too early for gathering linden blossoms. Most linden trees planted in Connecticut are the American variety, and while they still make a pleasant tea, the European varieties planted at Harkness are more fragrant.

Around the house Robert noticed some common mallow. The hairy leaves are edible if cooked, and the small seed head is edible raw when young and tender. It is referred to as the "cheese". We'll look for more plants to gather a large amount for some serious tasting.

We picked a bunch of wild garlic flowers to eat, and pulled some garlic heads from the soil. I think I'll try to make a braid if I can find enough around here. Robert gathered a big bowl of smilax to cook with some oil and soy sauce, and it was very tasty.

On another day we headed up to Thompson to look for some letterboxes, hide some letterboxes, and forage. There was some re-enactment camping happening on the west side of the Thompson Dam, and we visited the site and learned a bit about primitive camping and cooking outdoors. On one old paved road on the west side of the Dam, we planted 3 Foraging Japanese Knotweed boxes. We passed some very mature knotweed along the sunnier sections of the old farm road. We also found some nettles, hickory trees, orpine, black cherry trees, black raspberries, cattails, and grape vines. Down below the dam, while searching for another box, I found a great spot to hide Foraging Wild Grapes and it's bonus along a short trail to another small dam. There were 2 families of 8 Canada geese each hissing at me down there! I hope these boxes get lots of traffic at the upcoming letterboxing gathering in June. Here we also found a few big clusters of cleavers. It has some velcro-like properties in that it will stick to a cotton shirt or bag. We ran around throwing them at each other, playing a silly forager game we now call "Cleavers". This herb can be juiced and drunk as a body cleansing herbal remedy, or the leaves can be cooked in soups.

Indian Cucumber

Not many foraging books will discuss Medeola virginiana, since it can be difficult to find, and is considered endangered in Florida and Indiana. The plant prefers open forests with moist soil. We have found some colonies in Gay City State Park in Hebron CT, and at Browning Mill Pond in Rhode Island. Sometimes only a few plants are found, but in these two places there are large amounts to dig.

The plant has a cottony bloom along it's single stem base. It can either have one set of whorled leaves, or a double tiered set of leaves, producing a flower cluster at the top tier. The bottom tier has between 5-11 smooth, tapered leaves. The top tier, if present, will have 3 leaves and the yellow, hanging flowers. The flowers will produce a small, purplish-black, inedible berry. The veins in the leaves run parallel from the base to the tip.

A few inches below the dirt, running horizontally, is the white, edible root. It can be 1-3 inches long, waxy, and crispy. It washes up easily, and tastes really fresh and sweet, like a cross between a cucumber and a water chestnut. We don't cook it, but eat it raw as a trailside nibble or in a salad. We don't usually gather a large amount, as the plant is killed once dug up, and can be scarce.

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We have a letterbox planted in Gay City SP, Foraging Indian Cucumber. It is placed with a second letterbox, Foraging Wild Ginger, which was originally planted in Vermont for the Back to Our Roots gathering.

Black Locust

There is about one week in spring when the Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) blooms and we gather the flowers. The smell is sweet like a perfume, and lends itself nicely to sweet foods like fritters and pancakes. The blossoms attract lots of bees, and ants.

Black Locust is native to the Appalachian Mountain area, and is considered an invasive tree in other places. It grows quickly, and often in clusters, crowding out native vegetation and aggressively invading fields. The roots alter the nitrogen content of the soil. Most parts of the tree are toxic, causing digestive system problems. In late summer the tree produces flat, green seedpods that looks like beans containing flat seeds. It is only the flowers that we gather and consume.

The bark of older Black Locust trees is grey and deeply furrowed. The tree can grow up to 100 feet tall, and the trunk is usually crooked. The wood is very strong and often used in posts. The leaves are compound with 7 to 21 oval, smooth edged leaflets. On smaller trees, a pair of thorns grow at the leaf axils. The white flower clusters droop from the trees in late spring, making the entire tree appear white. Each flower in the cluster has a yellow spot on it's top petal, and the flowers look like pea blossoms. They are crispy when picked, and can be refrigerated or even frozen for later use. They are most fragrant right before opening, or within a day or so.

The best way to eat the blossoms is raw from the tree. Use them in a salad, or stir them into hot oatmeal. We remove the flowers from the cluster stem and add them to pancakes. Robert makes a sweet drink with the flowers steeped in water, honey, and lemon juice. This year, we are trying a peasant wine made with the blossoms. We have a letterbox available,Foraging Black Locust , in a small riverside park filled with very tall Black Locust trees.

Foraging Report 05/24/2010

Nothing new to report this week, just more of the same. In some areas, the blueberries and huckleberries are growing nicely. We picked more smilax shoots to eat, dug some more Indian cucumber roots as a trail nibble, plucked monkey tail tendrils from grape vines to munch, and tried to finish eating the Black Locust flowers up in the fridge.

While out letterboxing, we were able to find our 5th CT DEP State Forest Box, earning a patch. We went to Meshomasic and Cockaponset Forests this weekend. Cockoponset has regularly scheduled controlled burns, so there are areas where the tree canopy is not nearly as dense, resulting in great foraging spots. Some of the first plants that will reoccupy a burned area are the bushy wild blueberries and huckleberries. While there, we also spotted a garter snake and a big,black snake, and a robin's nest with 3 bright blue eggs. There is a vernal pool in the area, with a duck we startled and plenty of frogs and tadpoles.

Foraging Report 05/17/2010

In typical New England fashion, the weather has been up and down, hot and cold, windy and drizzly, and we are getting a bit of everything each day. I heard some commercial fruit growers and orchard owners were worried about early blossoming, and then late frosting of buds this year. Last year the overabundance of rain that ruined everyone's tomatoes was fantastic for blackberries and grapes! There doesn't seem to be any ill effects on the wild blossoms like cherries and blueberries, and blackberries are flowering nicely.



This week started the very short Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) blossom season. The smell of perfume is heavy in the air around the trees, and we went out gathering the flower racemes. Robert likes to make a sweet drink from them by infusing them into honeyed water with lemons and dandelion flowers. We also picked a big bag full for a batch of peasant wine, and hope to try some fritters. There is a park here in Norwich that has quite a few very tall Black Locusts that are impossible to pick from, but we did hide a letterbox there, Foraging Black Locust. The only edible part of the tree is the blossom, all other parts are a bit toxic.

We went out to gather more garlic mustard greens and green seed pods to boil and stuff into a bread to take to a potluck letterboxing gathering. It was Wanda and Pete's retirement from letterboxing, and a great group of friendly letterboxers showed up to hike, eat, exchange and chat. We met Veganf, Misplaced Manatee and lionsmane, and chatted with Celtic Roots, Bluebird, Wanda and Pete, and others. Lenny from The Compass Cuties made some fresh Rhode Island Chowder to end the afternoon. Robert hiked with some folks, and Teabass was so brave to try some wild edibles they found!



At the Browning Mill Pond Recreational Area, we found the biggest patches of Indian cucumber (Medeola virginiana) we have seen. In some areas like Florida and Illinois the plant is endangered. We don't usually dig a lot of roots, since they are small and it kills the plant, but they make a nice trailside nibble. They like rather wet and shady areas with rich soil. The foliage is out now, and some plants are producing flowers. Robert brought some home to sautée, and they keep their sweet crunchiness with cooking. We planted Foraging Indian Cucumber last year at Gay City State Park in Hebron, Connecticut.

Another new edible we tried this week is smilax, or greenbrier. There are more than 300 species of smilax, but they all have similar characteristics. They are a vining shrub and will grow into large thickets. They have thorns and tendrils, and the identification is based on the placement of the leaves and tendrils. The very top portion of the vine is snapped off, and either eaten raw or lightly boiled. We both agreed it is pretty tasty, and will experiment with it some more.

We noticed the withered, brown Japanese knotweed patches along the roadsides in rural Connecticut. They are spraying them with herbicides to try to eradicate this invasive plant, but I think all they are accomplishing is poisoning the environment. It takes numerous applications of poison to kill the plant since it reproduces through it's rhizomes as well as it's seeds. We do not recommend foraging near roadways and along railroad tracks due to herbicide and poison usage, and pollution from cars and salt.