5 Tips To Make You A Better Edible Plant Forager
Tip 1: Find a Foraging Mentor
A mentor, with plenty of experience in a given area, is invaluable to the modern-day forager. Even more so than for hunters and anglers. Tons of animals are edible. And most of the time it is extremely easy to identify an animal. But with plants and mushrooms, the similarities between species can make it much harder to tell them apart.
And even worse… there are plenty of plants and mushrooms in the wild that will kill you in the smallest amounts. All that can be scary…which is why way more people in the United States hunt and fish.
But if you have a mentor you can cut your learning curve way down. And I promise that as you learn more about different species and ecosystems your foraging confidence will grow. The beautiful thing about that is that you are then motivated to find new species by yourself. And with time you will get to know species that your mentor might not be familiar with. That's when the mentee becomes the mentor to the mentor :) You can reciprocate by getting them into new wild edibles.
Tip 2: Learn & Observe The Life Cycle Of Wild Plants
The secret to finding a lot of edible plants is to ID them correctly during different parts of the year. Once you can spot them at any point of their lifecycle you will find new spots much faster. This might be the most important skill to master as a forager, but it isn't always easy.
Most plants change their appearance as they develop throughout the seasons. There are some exceptions of course. But for the most part, I like to learn about their lifecycle in my foraging books or online, and then observe them throughout the different growth stages. Each growth stage can provide you with identification factors that will allow you to distinguish them from their lookalikes.
I really like to go through this process when looking for plants that are harvested in spring. Spring can be a tough season to ID plants with certainty, because many of the plants will look super similar when they are young. Their features just aren't developed enough. For example, leaves will often change their appearance and stalks that were soft and smooth might end up deeply grooved and rigid later on in the year.
Knowing what the plant looks like throughout the year can also help you find spots outside of harvest season. Wild Asparagus is a great example of this. As asparagus matures it changes from what we would find at the grocery store to a large bushy stalk with red berries. Then in fall and winter, when the stalks die back, they turn a golden brown and dry out. But due to their fibrous structure, the mature asparagus plants can often be visible all year. And they especially stand out in the snow. This is the perfect opportunity to mark spots for the spring harvest.
Below are links to an episode I did on foraging for Wild Asparagus in the fall.
Tip 3: Collect Lots Of Data Points To Find More Foraging Spots
Take note of EVERYTHING! For each of the species you are looking for, binge binge binge information about their identification factors. Then collect as many data points about them in the field as you can.
When I find a plant I will take tons of pictures of its different features. I will even try to dig up the roots at times. Like species in the onion (allium) family for example. I also like progress pictures for plants. I might find a plant in late spring, once the leaves have developed, but won't be able to harvest it until the fall. But in the fall, the plant might look nothing like it did in early spring. This will also help you teach your foraging buddies so that they too can find more success.
I will also take pictures of the surrounding environment that the plant is growing in. This includes pictures of the soil. Soil type and quality can be a good indicator to focus on when looking for new areas that might hold the plant species you are after. If there is a body of water nearby I will take note of that as well. It's crazy how many edible plants like to grow near bodies of water. Hence why our ancestors chose to settle in those places. You can even go so far as to record other species that grow in the area. Most of the time plants are associated with other plants in a given area.
It is also a good idea to take note of the date and weather conditions. Having a log of when you harvested a plant in your region will help you time future harvests more consistently over time. And timing goes hand in hand with weather conditions. Plants need special weather conditions to germinate and grow. That’s why harvest dates will greatly depend on the weather.
Then study your images and notes over the years to get a good sense of when the peak harvest season happens in each of your spots.
Tip 4: Mark All Your Spots On A Map
With time, you will have so many plant foraging spots that it will be difficult to keep track of them. So having easy access to a map with all your spots is invaluable.
Why?? Because then you can come back to each spot year after year. It will also make it easier to plan your foraging trips in the future. Many plants are perennials, meaning they live for multiple years. Like wild fruit trees for example. The same goes for biennials (two year lifecycle) and annuals (one year life cycle). The annuals might not be there the next year, but they will have had time to spread their seeds. Meaning your chances of finding seedlings are high!
So mark those spots and analyze them before the spring season starts. And then make a game plan for the following season…that way you spend less time searching for new spots and more time harvesting!
I like to keep track of my spots using a digital mapping tool called onX. This app makes it super easy to drop way-points (pins) when you are out foraging. It even has an offline map option so that you can use it in areas with no cell service.
If you look at my onX map it looks like an artwork. There are colorful pins everywhere! If you are on top of it you can even color code them. This is something I didn’t do and I regret it. Now I will have to find an open afternoon to sit down and get my pins organized :(
Tip 5: Be Prepared To Go On Many Foraging Hikes
A lot of foraging is spending time in nature with boots on the ground. Don’t expect to always leave with a big harvest on your first try. There have been many times where I spent weeks out hiking looking for a species only to come back empty handed. That’s just part of the experience.
Don’t let this discourage you though. There are definitely species that are easy to find. Many of them probably grow in your backyard! But depending on what you are looking for, you might have to put in some serious time and effort. Especially if you want to get away from people.
What helps me when I get skunked is to look at foraging as an experience. If you pay close attention to nature you usually come back with more knowledge about how things are connected and interwoven. This will make you a more conscious participant in your natural environment.
I hope you learned something new from this post and are inspired to get after some wild, edible plants this year.
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