Anyone Foraging for Food?

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7Wannabe5
Posts: 9370
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@C40: Just get an semi-official looking vest with reflective tape and pretend you are part of fruit-litter prevention corps. Of course, might not be worth the trouble since you can't really preserve/keep much fruit in your van.

Snow mixed with rain here yesterday, and my right eye is temporarily paralyzed, so no foraging (or gardening) for me. Unless you count freegan mooching access to contents of my BF's kitchen. Not much available yet anyways except dandelion greens. However, I am, hopefully, thanks to scavenging efforts of my permaculture partner, having 2 large truckloads of free wood chips dumped on my lot this afternoon.

Hégé
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2017 6:51 am
Location: Somewhere in western europe

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Hégé »

I try to incorporate more food from wild plants in my diet. I find that the hardest part is learning to cook them so that you actually want to eat them.
It's really easy when the plant is delicious without a lot of preparation. I can't get enough of Allium ursinum for the moment (it makes a wonderful pesto if you haven't tried it, try it!), stinging nettle soup is also delicious.
Also, in the early spring, you can eat a lot of young leaves from trees. In my region, beech, lime, hornbeam trees are the best ones. Served with a vinaigrette and a poached egg, it's very nice :)

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9370
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Hege: Ramps! Will add to list of under-story bulbs for my mini-orchard. The daffodils are pretty, but not very tasty ;) (WARNING: Understatement. Do not eat daffodils. Poison! Poison! Poison!)

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Myakka »

www.eattheweeds.com

I know and use many of the wild plants that I find in my yard. (My bunny eats many more of them than I do.) The above link has information about wild plants with a focus on Florida, USA but not exclusively that.

Ken
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:15 pm

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Ken »

Check out Sam Thayer's two books: "The Forager's Harvest", and "Nature's Garden". IMO, the best guides in print, if you have to learn from a book. If you can, spend time time foraging with a good Ethnobotanist. I've done a lot of foraging, and feel it fits right in the the ERE philosophy. I have my favorite spots that I go to depending on the time of year. The wild leeks (ramps) and just now coming up in my yard now!

Gilberto de Piento
Posts: 1942
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:23 pm

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I do some guerilla gardening last fall, leaving pears in a brushy area in a park. Hopefully they will grow. Someone else had already planted onions in the same spot.

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Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Sclass »

C40 wrote:
Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:30 pm
huh... the city of Phoenix has updated the site with thousands of trees in public areas.

I've been walking/riding around town often wondering if it's reasonable to just take some of the fruit off trees from people's yards or from ~landscaping trees on commercial property. I could at least try these out.
Stanford University used to publish a map of all the fruit trees for starving students- the place was huge and had all kinds of trees with free fruit. We used to tease (I was a 21 year old child) the foreign students who came in ecstatically telling us about their harvest at the music building. "You mean the fruit that crazy Chemistry dropout was caught injecting with a syringe?" :lol: :lol: :lol: Sarcasm doesn't translate well. People got really upset.

My mom's house has a lot of fruit trees I planted as a kid. The gardeners clean them out every year. :x Make sure you get permission before you take from privately owned trees. Some people may get mad. I had my garden harvested a few years back by a family that came through offering to do yard work. I tried to rationalize that they needed the veggies more than I did but I was as livid as I get when a squirrel destroys something I planned to harvest.
Gilberto de Piento wrote:
Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:28 pm
I do some guerilla gardening last fall, leaving pears in a brushy area in a park. Hopefully they will grow. Someone else had already planted onions in the same spot.
This is fabulous. Brilliant. It reminds me of Russia during 1990s when everyone started planting the green belts with potatoes. A government worker showed me this because he said you never knew when the pachecks would arrive. After a few months, you had a backup food supply. Just dig. Old ladies would guard the patches in exchange for a cut and other exchangeable goods.

BWND
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:08 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by BWND »

Just on that Standford students anecdote you told, Sclass. It seems the normal thing these days is to go out at lunch time with your phone and "forage" for Pokemons. Imagine telling a co-worker you were going out looking for free food...


Has anyone dumpster dived?

thrifty++
Posts: 1171
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 3:46 pm

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by thrifty++ »

Yes I have foraged for food plenty. You can definitely obtain a lot of food in and around the city. But ultimately given how much I earn and the time involved and the amount of money saved doing the activity I decided ultimately it wasnt worth my while, but a fun experiment. It is also nice to know that there are these sorts of options if you end up in a financially perilous state at some stage.
I have also dumpster dived. But again not worth my time and I was always quite concerned about the uncertain legal nature of it. It doesnt seem clear whether it is allowed or not.

Laura Ingalls
Posts: 668
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 3:13 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

Noal wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 1:47 pm
Just on that Standford students anecdote you told, Sclass. It seems the normal thing these days is to go out at lunch time with your phone and "forage" for Pokemons. Imagine telling a co-worker you were going out looking for free food...


Has anyone dumpster dived?
I do from time to time. I have two stores around with unlocked easily accessible dumpsters. I usually just check them before I walk in the front door to buy whatever is on the list. I actually stopped looking at one for awhile because the Frito-lay truck kept leaving so many chips. :lol:

BWND
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:08 am

Re: Anyone Foraging for Food?

Post by BWND »

Good on you! I'm still hamstrung by decades of social conditioning!

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