Dry harvest list - PEP BB foraging.sand.dry

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
Harvest, dry and store one of the following:
Twenty pounds (fresh weight) of:
     o plums

To document your completion of the BB, provide the following:
 - A picture of one of the plants/fungi in the wild
 - A picture of the bounty on a scale showing the weight
 - A picture of the dried goodies in or with their storage container

Sadly, I lost almost 1/3 of the goodies because I over-dried them and no one thinks they're palatable. But I still have so much so all is good. I learned that it's critical to distribute the same volume between each cookie sheet for drying.

There is an enormous, lovely blackberry hedge growing just beyond my back fence, which no one has maintained or harvested in the 5 years I’ve lived here.
This year, I finally decided to get my act in gear and forage!

The entire time doing this I thought “I’m probably not going to like this” and well, I wasn’t necessarily wrong.
But I bet in January these berries will be a nice change of pace, and I’m sure Otis has made a thing or two which didn’t make the top 10 list. I’m equally sure it got eaten.

I picked quite the bowl full, it ended up being 8lbs in total, 3 of which I’m saving for other things.
Here’s my submission for 5+ lbs of dried blackberries!

Wild Mint! Specifically cat nip. I would like to submit 1 lb for the dry list and the other 2 lbs as the elective.

I harvested over 5lbs of chokecherries, then air dried them (divided) in pillow cases outside. I plan to crush the dried cherries and add to meals.

Harvest, dry and store one of the following:
Five pounds (fresh weight) of:
     o cherries

To document your completion of the BB, provide the following:
 - A picture of one of the plants/fungi in the wild
 - A picture of the bounty on a scale showing the weight
 - A picture of the dried goodies in or with their storage container

Clarifications:
 - This is "Foraging" so the plants/fungi can not be cultivated by you.

drying Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms for use in stock or powdering later. Harvested this big fella on the way to the farmer's market, first pic is it freshly harvested and about to be divvied up for sale, it was close to 30 lbs initially. After removing the more tender parts best for normal cooking we are left with the base or stump as we call it, about 8 lbs. This we dry for use in making stock for ourselves or selling as a mixed blend with other dried mushrooms during the fall/winter seasons. Last pic shows it in a gallon jar though I have loads more of it and other mushrooms that I normally vacuum seal. In case one giant mushroom was a bit of an edge case I show it with jars of other dried mushrooms for legitimacy, including massive stock of sliced and dried wild reishi awaiting tincturing, chanterelle powder, half a gallon or so of black trumpets and the last of the morels we have.

After a couple years, I finally found enough mushrooms to harvest at once for this BB. Most of my mushroom locations yielded just a handful at a time, and unfortunately some of the nicest spots have been developed in the intervening time!

While cycling, I found a lovely flush of wood ear on a log that came down in Cyclone Gabrielle. I was able to harvest 1.526 + 1.271kg (6.16lbs) of wood ear.

The other two jars are the largest singles flushes of mushrooms from the previous years.