Developing A Lifestyle Of Learning The "Wild Grocery Store"

How many of you have learned your local grocery store so well you can just quickly run inside and know just where to go to quickly get what you need? You even know how to pass by the produce and figure out as you are passing through if certain fruits are in season and are in stock.

I have gotten to know some of my foraging locations so well that I just know where to quickly look to find what I need. Last summer I was finding plenty of Chanterelles just where I expected. But as I was going through the "store" I was careful to see if the Hedgehogs and Black Trumpets were "in stock" yet.

With mushrooms I wait to go out until a day or so after a good rain. I can make these stops as fast as you can run into Walmart to get a few things. The great thing is the day I was looking for Chanterelles, I came out with $30 worth of free gourmet mushrooms. I didn't spend money, I gained it.

Sometimes when the mushrooms are very prolific I will spend some extra time "shopping" for new spots. To get to know other areas. All of this is an investment that really begins to pay off over time. It really has to become part of your lifestyle though. Even if my hunt is not as successful as I would like, because they were "out of stock". I still get a great walk, and a time of solitude.

Welcome to Permies, Craig!

I love what you wrote. It is a wonderful luxury to be able to get so familiar with a place that you know what to find and what the expect.
This year we are definitely there-- yesterday we went hunting for bamboo shoots, and earlier this spring we harvested huge quantities of mulberries from places we noticed in previous years. Last year when the price of lemons was through the roof, I remembered a park that had some lemon trees and we went hunting.... This week, I know there are blackberries in a place I take the dog for training, and I'll be snagging them as well..... it is great to know what's out there and to be able to make it part of your life.

This year has been my first year that I seriously began foraging. It is year 26 that I have been in this property. I have my 11 acres. My neighbor has already declared his 500 acres open to me. While much of his is farmland, there are significant wooded areas as well.

I posted this several years ago, but it is worth the repeat. When he realized what I was up to on my property, he made a point of leaving a significant unplanted border between my proper and his.  It seems to be a permanent feature. It is somewhere between 30 and 60 ft wide. I haven’t seen it in a few months, but it is darned decent of him.  

In NW Montana where morel mushrooms are common to be found I ordered spores by mail and planted them at the border of my property noticing it as an ideal location. I wasn't there long enough but the spores weren't as expensive asa petrol to and from remote locations and it added to local food security at my location.

Jon Hanzen wrote:In NW Montana where morel mushrooms are common to be found I ordered spores by mail and planted them at the border of my property noticing it as an ideal location. I wasn't there long enough but the spores weren't as expensive asa petrol to and from remote locations and it added to local food security at my location.

Thank you for commenting. I feel very fortunate that I have Morels in two different parts of my homestead. Whenever I can I will incorporate mushrooms into the homestead environment. I have Wine Caps in my garden and have done log culture with other species. Generally when I forage, it is when I have other business, like delivering vegetables to the Chef I grow for.  Many places are close to that driving route. Many of my best foraging areas are fortunately very close and can often be checked while I ride my bike as well.

Very often I will take some of my wild harvest mushrooms and spread them in my homesteads forests. That is a great way to establish new species over time. In fact one of my friends would always wash his Morels and take the rinse water and spread it in the same location next to his home. Over time that location became a great location to harvest from as well. Fortunately Morels are not quite as picky when it comes to relating to certain species of trees, as some mushrooms are. In fact I am often surprised the places I find them. Unlike some species like the Birch Bolete that only relates to Birch trees. Often when I am foraging, I am hunting for trees first. Then after finding the trees, I begin to look for certain species of mushrooms. Sometimes this can be very predictable.

As someone who has had a passing interest in foraging for years, this thread is both informative and inspiring in equal messure. Thank you for sharing your various approaches, it has certainly spurred me on to learn more about what could potentially available in my local area and identifying said 'products'.

Do any of you have any recommended reading?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Scott Read wrote:Do any of you have any recommended reading?

I see you are UK based, Scott....'Food for Free' by Richard Mabey was my first foraging book, old now, but a classic guide. I also enjoy Galloway wild foods online foraging 'blog.

I would not forage due to rattlesnakes though if I had to there are pecans and acorns this time of year, agarita berries during spring/summer, prickly pear tuna in August and prickly pear pad anytime of the year.

The shelves at my wild grocery store are pretty bear most of the year.

Nancy Reading wrote:
I see you are UK based, Scott....'Food for Free' by Richard Mabey was my first foraging book, old now, but a classic guide. I also enjoy Galloway wild foods online foraging 'blog.

Thank you for that Nancy, very much appreciated, I will definitely check out that blog and see If I can locate a copy of that book.

I grew up, and live, in England. Foraging was part of my upbringing. My father tells tales of being sent by his mother to the spot just outside the village where, as a child, she always found the best early dewberries.

I remember picking elderflowers, elderberries, blackberries and sloes for wine, crumbles & infusion into gin, respectively. And my late Mum remembered when they picked enough cowslips from their own land for wine, too.

I've never had enough training to recognise the harmful mushrooms (toadstools, as we call them, but that's not a scientific name!) so I just admire fungi and grow at home from certified spores!

These days, my grandmother's village has grown very large and I'm too sad to return. Meanwhile, I live in a city, and mostly only harvest blackberries from our nearby mini-park.

But I'm also involved in our 'Fruit & Nut Village' project in the city: https://www.fruitandnutvillage.org.uk/.  This year alone, they plan to plant over 150 fruit & nut trees - apple, pear, plum, damson, mulberry, almond and more - across spots in the city parks and green spaces. They also plant forest gardens with vegetables.  They have about 80 sites now, with I think over 500 trees, planted since 2018 so coming into fruit for the first time successively.

One key aim is to make foraging for fruit & veg more accessible to the million city residents, who (like the UK as a whole) typically don't eat even the Government recommend minimum fruit & veg intake of 5 portions.