What is in your Foraging Kit?

Good Morning Permies,

I am interested to know what are your go-to tools and supplies for when you go out foraging?

Do you have a preferred tool, container, clothing?

Do you just have general supplies and look for everything at once or do you go out with a specific item in mind to forage?

I want to hear it all and collect information on people's foraging kits.

Thanks!

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:

This reply is (a little) tounge in cheek:
I like to keep tarps, alcohol based hand sanitizer and a long(expandable) stick in  my car.
This covers most of the foraging I do, because I'm usually diving dumpsters!

Metal colander with drain holes. Tried mushroom hunting with paper bags while everything was wet once, didn't go well.

A tub of sulfur for chiggers.

Some things are constant - a good, sharp knife, gloves, essential oil insect repellent, and protective shoes, for example. Other things are dependent on what & when I'm foraging, like: containers - i.e. an appropriately sized basket (berries, leaves, whole plants, blossoms...), bag (mainly mushies), or bucket (roots, tubers, other messy things); shoes (hot dry weather, primarily low-risk areas) or boots (cool/wet weather, brambles, venomous snake hazards, etc); sequiturs (for anything too sturdy to cut with merely a knife, like branches for bark tinctures); a small shovel &/or gardening claw (roots, tubers, whole plants).

Also good to have - a broad-brimmed hat, water or herbal tea, a pad or something to sit on (for resting my achy joints, recovering from whichever chronic ailment decides to attack me, etc), and my phone, because if my hypermobility issues cause me yet another fall, I may need emergency assistance to get back in, from whichever part of our acreage I'm foraging, at the moment, as well as for taking pictures of the abundant flora & fauna, here.

It sounds like a lot to carry, but it all either fits into my pockets, clips to belt loops, has a holster, has a carrying strap to be slung over a shoulder, or is just worn. So, my hands are, with the exception of the basket, essentially empty. Even the bags roll or fold up into themselves, and only need to be carried in hand, if they get filled - if they're not tied to my belt.

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

berry picker

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

THAT is what I need! We have acres of wild blackberries, and I just can't stand in the heat(seems like it's always 100°F+, when they ripen), in my thorn-protective clothes, long enough to hand pick enough for more than one dessert.

we always carry a loosely woven basket when gathering mushrooms to spread the spores as we're walking along. Also, whereever I go I usually wear big pockets with a pocket-sized clipper/secaturs and a fold-uppable bag or 2 in case I come across seeds, scions, or miscellaneous nibbles to gather.