Fall foraging BINGO

What are your favorite wild edible and medicinal plants to forage in fall?

Our family's (in SW Minnesota) are generally....

~ Acorns, mostly for flour (though sometimes for fun things like coffee creamer, ice cream, etc.)

~ Hawthorn berries (haws) for tinctures for heart health

~ Wild mushrooms like lion's mane (medicinally), chicken of the woods (eating) and inky caps (art).

~ The last of the berries and fruits like elderberries and wild grapes for food, drinks and medicine.

~ Dock seeds for flour for things like brownies and crackers.

~ Fruits like pears, apples and crab apples for baking, cider, etc.

~ Herbs like dandelion root for tinctures.

~ Sumac for spice and sumac lemonade.

~ Walnuts for baking, though they are so fiddly that we don't do them most years, TBH.

If you and your kids would like to have fun with it, here's a fall foraging BINGO I made up for the September Wild Kids Magazine (a free nonprofit nature and foraging magazine for kids and their grown ups that I've put out for over 7 years).  If you want a printable version, you can find it in the September 2026 issue here.  (The current October 2026 issue up now too here.)

Would you get a bingo?  What would you add?  :)

PS These are obviously for our part of the world but I'd be happy to make one up for other areas if you want to list favorite plants to look for!

Over here in the UK it's mostly sloes and hazelnuts right now, and rosehips that I dry for tea. The sloes are a bit of a faff to prep but worth it. Squirrels usually get to the hazelnuts before I do though.