Foraging

[a...@windandsun.com]

There are foods to forage within the 100 MFC. This is not my area of
expertise, but I am pleased that I have found rose hips in my
neighborhood. My grandmother told me these little “fruits” are very
high in vitamin C. I am drying them to use in hot tisanes. I found a
chokecherry bush/tree in the hedgerow. I wish I had harvested the
fruits for jam, but I was overwhelmed with produce from the garden
which was more demanding. By the time I remembered the chokecherries,
the birds had already harvested them.

Euell Gibbons, in his seminal book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, talks
about setting up a wild indoor garden in one’s basement. He suggests
forcing wild plants in soil boxes in order to have fresh salads and
vegetables right through the winter. He suggests poke (Phytolacca
americana) and dandelion for this purpose. I don’t know what poke is
or whether it grows in my yard, but I do know dandelion, and now I
have a dandelion garden in the old sink in the basement. The sink had
been used for a vermicomposting bin and still had lots of terrific
worm castings in it. I added compost from my outdoor compost bins,
and I water my seedlings often. I’ll let you know when I harvest a
crop of blanched dandelion greens.

I had been wondering if there was anyone in the 100 mile radius who
harvested wild nuts. At the Algoma Food Forum in early October, I
became acquainted with a fellow whose parents harvest, shell and sort
wild hickory nuts. What a treat! I ordered two more pounds of these
sweet treats with a hope that they would be available in time for some
kind of local holiday baking.

Ann

[a...@windandsun.com]

Oh, another resource I use for wild foods information is a book given
to me by my sister-in-law. It is Wild Food Plants of Indiana and
Adjacent States by Alan and Sue McPherson.
Ann

On Dec 14, 12:54 pm, a...@windandsun.com wrote:
> There are foods to forage within the 100 MFC. . . .