What do you forage for?

What are the most important foraged plants you use for food or medicine in your region? I live in mid michigan. This year my main harvests so far have been:
Goosefoot
Nettle
Oyster mushroom
Garlic mustard
Ramps
Juneberry( landscaping alnifolia)
Black raspberry
Mulberry
Milkweed buds
Right now i am surrounded in berries,
struggling to keep up with all the juneberry and raspberries i am picking. Next up are gooseberries,blackberries,red raspberries,blueberries,beach rose hips,feral apples,pears,grapes,chokecherries,aronia,autumn olive, acorns, and walnuts. I also would like to make raspberry leaf and other herbal teas.

Juneberries

Hello Daphne:
As you can see under my name on the left I live in Longbranch in the middle of Puget sound.  By updating your profile clicking on your name  in the upper right corner you can add the details you want with your name and add an automatic Naturegirl signature to your posts.  I collect a variety of seasonal greens for each meal and I have selected a variety of fruit and berry trees and vines for there seasonal production. Today it is half wiled cherries.

Neat. Those look alot like the feral pie cherries i picked last year.

Daphne TheNatureGirl wrote:Juneberries

I did a double-take when I saw your photo. Those are Saskatoons! That's the Cree word (I think) and that's what Canadians call them.

Saskatoon rhubarb jam is the best of the best of the best!!

I admire your haul. We had good pollination but it's too damn droughty here, and unless we water our native Saskatoons we won't get much.

At my previous homestead we planted tame cultivars that produced more and I kept them going no matter what. In the long long ago, alas.

Fascinating piece on this fabulous and wily plant here;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier

Daphne TheNatureGirl wrote:Neat. Those look alot like the feral pie cherries i picked last year.

They do have a lot of pie cherry characteristics but they are sweet bitter instead of sour.  The native wild cherries  are very small and quite bitter.  Some trees reflect the black cherry heritage and others more red/yellow.

We have a range of things to forage but I admit I don't know what many of them really are and am probably missing a lot of opportunity, especially with wild greens. We don't eat a lot of dandelions for example, and I have never tried nettles.

They don't produce well every year, but wild raspberries and wild blackberries are real treats. Wild black cherries are a favorite of mine but hard to get in quantity, as they grow high up on very large trees. I also love wild plums, but they are far less common than they years ago, I don't know why. Almost forgot wild paw paws and persimmons, we like them too. O, and mulberries, I love wild mulberries.

Nuts in the fall are by far the most important forage crop for us. Pecans and black walnuts are abundant, and we always make the rounds of our favorite trees. I have on occasion filled the truck bed several inches deep with them, many of which I dump out along the back roads of the neighborhood for the squirrels to plant. That has worked well, especially with the pecans which are now replacing to some degree the ash trees that died out in our area some years ago. I also planted a lot from my favorite trees nearby on my own land, the neighbors land and some state-owned hunting land. That was about twenty-five years ago, and many are producing now, it's nice just being able to walk around and collect them rather than driving all over the county. Hickory is a favorite of mine, but they rarely produce a good crop anymore.

We opened up some good trails this year, through Saskatoon and beaked hazelnut groves. If we get some good rain, we will be able to get to them before the birds and squirrels (well some, maybe, let's be practical, these are sharks).

So nice to hear about what everyone is foraging! Lately, i have been picking a lot of berries on a daily basis. There is an abandoned homestead with feral thornless raspberries i have been picking. As for the juneberries, only the landscaping cultivars (alnifolia) bear fruit where i live. There are millions of wild amelanchier trees where i live, and not one bears a single edible berry.

Just yesterday I was out picking chanterelles and blackberries, and came across a thicket of hazelnuts that'll be ready later this season.  

Lots of mushrooms- oysters, morels, pheasant's back, lion's mane, chanterelles, hen of the woods.
Gooseberries, blackberries, wild plum, elderberry flowers and berries.  
Lamb's quarter, dandelions, purslane.  
Pecans when I remember to go look for them, hazelnuts when I remember to go look for them, persimmons.  

Cool foraging, Tom Worley. I als have my eyes on some hazelnuts. I found a lions mane one time-the best! I picked about a pound each of blueberries and raspberries today.

I found these mulberries in a park about 3 weeks ago. I picked about 10 lbs and canned them. I have been picking lots of thornless raspberries and blackberries.

We’re in a new area this year; been here since April and I’m already tickled to pieces with the forage I’ve found on the property. So far, we’ve had nettles, morels, spruce tips, and lamb’s quarter. A few days ago, I found an enormous stand of thimbleberries, which was very exciting! Not prolific producers, of course, but so very tasty. Huckleberries grow here, but I’ve not yet found any patches.

I forage for persimmons, elderberries, wild blackberries (though I missed them this year, because of weather & lack of spoons), mullein, plantain, dock, dandelions, chantarelles, wood ear, comfrey, yarrow, redbud blossoms, sumac, purslane, violets, rosehips, boneset, & mimosa. Some of those, I also attempt to grow, but... Well. Yeh.

Western NC: wood nettles, young Solomon's seal shoots (taste like asparagus), mushrooms (particularly morels, chanterelles, turkey tail for tinctures, cauliflower mushroom, chicken of the woods), ramps (but now we grow our own), blackberries, crabapples, American persimmons, chinquapins, Chinese chestnut (planted by someone but found wild in park), black walnuts, sassafras, white pine (pollen). There are tons of acorns around, but we haven't found time to put them to use. People around here go looking for ginseng as well and I've seen some, but left it alone.

Wood nettles and mushrooms are favorites, lots of food.

Just got a text from a neighbour: please come and pick Saskatoons!

He is half an hour south. In the drought our native Saskatoons have mostly shut down; but his tame varietals (planted by my father) are strong and productive and .. ready!

Interesting how the many evils of technology can also transfer good intel now and then. I see some hand=made saskatoon-rhubarb jam in his future.

I just picked these early apples. They look mediocre but they are actually really sweet and good except for a few worm holes which can be cut away. They await the juicer tomorrow.Still tons of blackberries too.

My favorite is dandelions. I like to make fritters with them.

A woman today was telling me about her work and that they did a foraging class for kids. Went over so well that a kid ate a dandelion in front of her, and she told him to spit it out. She was confused as to why I was offended.

I found wild gooseberries and cooked them down in some water, mashed, strained, added a spoon of honey and chilled for lovely juice. Now, how to beat the critters to them next year.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Just got a text from a neighbour: please come and pick Saskatoons!

Follow-up: My neighbour has many talents, but not a clue about fruit trees. Nothing there to pick. A few dried-up raisins. All is not lost, though. I will go in and vigorously prune the untended, unruly orchard (with his permission) and if next year is another dry year I will pump water from the nearby pond and we'll be in our glory. Meanwhile he will help with maintenance of our mowers and tillers; that is his talent and passion. Looks like a win-win to me!

I don't do all of these all the time, but in far southwest Oklahoma the edible/medicinal possibilities are: henbit, lambs quarter, pigweed (amaranth), very young Russian Thistle (tumbleweed), purslane, wild plums, native pecans, persimmon, grapes, blackberries, mesquite pods, juniper berries, prairie sage (Artemisia ludoviciana), hackberries, various acorns, silverleaf nightshade berries (vegetable rennet), buffalo gourd seed, yucca blossom, beebalm, puffball mushrooms just every now and then.  That's all I can think of right now.  

My v3ry first plant that was not one of my 300 indoor tropicals (oh I love the seemingly worthless) was a quince. It's got 30 fruits on it this year. I'm hoping to make into a paste. I'd drive up and help but you got this.

This week was a polygonum. Here's a lady's thumb article from eat the weeds.

My kid got several bushels of leaves. Some went in our perpetual stew pot, the rest in the greenhouse to be dehydrated.

More often than not its blackberries, because that's what all the sighted people in my life can actually recognize for us to munch on in the woods.  But sometimes "weeds" grow in my pots I grow purposeful plants in, and my husband and I use the plant ID app. on them and we can eat them, so that's how I get to "forage".

Some blackberries i picked. Some i picked yesterday, but most are from today. I have been picking 1-3 lbs daily in the past week.

You've got an amazing foraging setup in mid-Michigan! Sounds like you're really taking advantage of everything nature offers. Goosefoot, nettle, oyster mushrooms, garlic mustard, and all those berries—you're busy! Some other wild edibles that do well in your area include elderberries (great for syrups and jams), chickweed (nice in salads), dandelions (use the leaves, roots, and flowers), plantain (good for bug bites and cuts), wild grapes (perfect for jelly or wine), purslane (super nutritious), wild rose (use the hips and petals), yarrow (good for wound healing), and lamb's quarters (like goosefoot, great in salads).
Your plan for raspberry leaf and other herbal teas sounds fantastic. You might also try drying nettle leaves for tea. With all those berries and nuts coming up, you'll have a pantry full of wildcrafted goodness! Keep at it, and let me know how those teas turn out!

I picked these pears outside a pickle factory today. Nobody uses them, I discovered them last year and picked even more this year. The pears are hard and wont be ready for about a week. The aples i picked yesterday and will juice them today. Very good. Blackberries just dried up a few days ago, but it looks like with more rain there could be another flush. And, hopefully a chicken of the woods. About 40lb pears and 10 of apples total.

I don't forage a lot of anything, so it's not a serious occupation or portion of our annual food strategy, but some of the things I take each year are:

blackberries
dandelion buds
sheep sorrel
serviceberries
chives
burdock root
thimbleberries
birch and maple sap
spruce tips
sappy green pinecones
rose hips
nettle
mint leaves
(There's ditch-asparagus around but I only see it when it's gone ferny and then forget about it next year.)

What i got today: about 15 lb pears from an old homestead up for auction! And on the way back i spotted a big patch of purslane from my bike. Picked about 1 lb, will be back for more!

I just went and got more purslane. There is endless purslane in that patch. I hadn’t brought a big enough bag last time. Lots of green smoothies and purslane soup on the menu now!

Yesterday: about 15 lbs apples, lots of purslane. Same yellow apples from earlier. Made 1/2 gallon of the best cider ever. Early this morning i got about 20 mor pounds from the same tree. And more purslane

Finally the first red apples! Just picked ‘em. They are so sweet ‘n juicy!

I picked lots more yellow and red apples a few days ago and made cider with the yellows.Today i picked a mixed bag of red apples and pears about 20 pounds total.

I don't actively forage for much any more as I have most of what I used to forage for growing right around my house now.

I d o still forage for mushrooms in my forests and fields.  
I forage for my rose hips.
I forage for my Oregon grape berries and the roots.
I forage for huckleberries in my northern forest.
Apples and plums along the former railroad tracks.

Plants that I now grow around the house that I no longer need to forage for..

Dandelions, I have about half an acre of nearly 100% dandelion now.
Dock
Burdock
Mullein
Yarrow
wild lettuce
queen Anne's lace
lemon mint
peppermint
mint
cherries
service berry
apples
plums
clover
St Johns wort
Purslane
grape hyacinth
thistle
linden tree leaves/flowers
Catfish
large mouth bass

I just harvested 7 pounds of burdock seed today from the front yard along with some dock seed and wild lettuce seed.  I am going to set of a garden area for the burdock so that I can more easily get to the roots.

Little pears i picked in a vacant lot. Very sweet. Maybe Seckel? Also red apples, autumn olives.

Just came in on my bike with these.

More apples.if you can tell, some are huge.

big apples. Must stock up for winter.

Also autumn olives, grapes. I saw a loaded kousa dogwood in my hometown a while ago, albeit in a garden. Cool anyway.

I just came in by bike with this mixed load of concord grapes and pears from an abandoned homestead. Monday i got 15 lb grapes from same spot. Dont let the looks of te pears deceive you, theyre some of the best ever when ripe. Grapes were growing right up pear tree. Nature is abundant!