What is in your Foraging Kit?

it’s nut season! my car-foraging kit this time of year includes a big stack of 5-gallon buckets, plus a mid-sized ‘holt’s nut wizard’ for acorns and hickories and a few larger plastic bins to dump buckets into if i get into a good walnut spot.

Greg Martin wrote:

Andrew Rule wrote:Okay, Greg,

Where is your affiliate link to this product so we can click on it, we get a discount and you get a little bit of a finder's fee?  

Have you tried it with Autumn Olive?  It grows invasively, here.  But, my solution to that is pick the fruit and make jam out of it, this time of year.  

Teehehe!  I could be wrong, but if we put up an Amazon link I think Paul may get a tiny bit of coin to support the empire.  Just in case that's true:  Ergonomic Berry Picker at Amazon  Price is only 9 bucks at the moment.  Lowest I've ever seen it!

Funny you ask about Autumn Olive because that's my next target with this picker.  One thing you want with these pickers is a plant that matures its fruit all at the same time....check!  Autumn Olive does that very well.  The thing that I'm wondering about is the branching pattern.  Autumn Olive carries its fruit at the base of new shoots so I'm wondering how hard it might be to get them without filling the basket with leaves.  My Autumn Olives are just about ready to harvest so I'll find out soon.  They are such great berries when fully ripe.  I'm hoping this works well for them.  I'll post as soon as I give it a go.  

Ok, that berry picker is now on sale for $6.55.  Now I'm thinking about the foragers on my Christmas list.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Maybe I'm somewhat chaotic, but often I just throw everything in the pannier.

Love this Inge! I do the same.

I'm also a bicycle forager, as cycling is my primary mode of transportation. I always carry a pair of secateurs, bungee cords, and a folding pruning saw in my pannier just in case. I always ride with my backpack, so there's always a bit of extra storage space available for harvesting things. I'll often pop avocados, persimmons, walnuts, and other hard-skinned things directly into the pannier. However, if I know I'm going to be collecting something that is a bit more fragile, shouldn't get wet or really gathers dust (persimmons, acorns, mushrooms, bamboo shoots) etc, I'll bring some cloth bags to put in my panniers and backpack so that they don't get completely covered in dirt (my panniers always have dirt in the bottom from transporting plants, haha)

Reflecting back on this thread, I think one of the things that I have more recently started to make sure to have on hand is gloves.

I just have a habit of getting dirty with mud and whatnot when I'm out foraging and being able to have semi-clean skin is pleasant.

Have you tried it on wild black raspberry? Is it only good for certain types of berries?

j

Greg Martin wrote:I picked up a berry picker this year and love it!!!  Can't believe I didn't get one sooner.

Jim Garlits wrote:Have you tried it on wild black raspberry? Is it only good for certain types of berries?

j

I have not.  I am curious how that would go.  Are the tines spaced correctly?  Do the forces crush them?  Those are my first worries.  I don't have black raspberries here, but I do have red and the way the berries are clustered and don't ripen evenly has kept me from trying this on them.  Do black raspberries ripen more uniformly in the cluster?

No, not that I've noticed. They cluster and ripen unevenly like regular raspberries, they're just more delicate, almost like mulberries. I'm thinking these wouldn't be a good candidate.

j

Greg Martin wrote:

Jim Garlits wrote:Have you tried it on wild black raspberry? Is it only good for certain types of berries?

j

I have not.  I am curious how that would go.  Are the tines spaced correctly?  Do the forces crush them?  Those are my first worries.  I don't have black raspberries here, but I do have red and the way the berries are clustered and don't ripen evenly has kept me from trying this on them.  Do black raspberries ripen more uniformly in the cluster?

I'm planning to try them (I'm getting a couple, soon) on wild blackberries. Since their growth and ripening patterns are so similar, I'll let you know in late June/ early July! I'm also going to invest in some gauntlet style leather gloves, because I have to admit - I'm tired of getting shredded.

I even had a couple of dead thorns get through my boots, last year. I didn't realize that the stem had wedged between the treads, and with the next step, a thorn was stabbing the sole of my heel. Not fun! Anyone have ideas on that?

I love having the bucket around my neck and having both hands free. But sometimes it gets annoying when I lean in for berries and the bucket swings.

I have a gallon plastic jug I rinsed out and cut a hole in the top that my hand can fit in. Leave the handle completely intact, and run your belt through it! You have a hip-holster berry holder that you can fill up and dump into a 'main' bucket very easily.

I also have some long wool socks that I cut finger holes in and wear for raspberry thorns. If I ever feel brave and go picking without these, I regret it immediately.

That, plus a sun hat, and I'm all set! Don't bring food and water, just eat berries

Alan Burnett wrote:...I have a gallon plastic jug I rinsed out and cut a hole in the top that my hand can fit in. Leave the handle completely intact, and run your belt through it! You have a hip-holster berry holder that you can fill up and dump into a 'main' bucket very easily.

I like the recycled gallon jug on a belt!

Christopher Weeks wrote:I'm not a huge forager. I mostly gather berries around my property when they ripen up, and seeds that I'd like to grow next year. So I keep ziplock bags in my car and the pockets of my cargo shorts for seeds. If I'm going for berries I take paper quart bins or plastic pails. I also have this knife that my daughter gave me:

Lol...I never thought about having a "foraging kit" until you brought this up Timothy! How cool! I want one of these foraging knives Christopher has!

Seriously, I guess my "kit" is the hand trimmers I keep in the car and plastic sacks.