What is in your Foraging Kit?

I go foraging for certain items, so it depends

This time of year, I am going wild leek collecting or fiddlehead picking.

Wild leeks, the limit is 50 yearly, but I don't forage fully mature leeks which take 7 years before they flower. I leave those. I take a decent shovel and bring back two shovelfuls of immature leeks in a plastic container -- a bucket or whatever. I bring under the limit, at day break, plant them.

Out of the wild in better conditions, they will flower in 4-5 years. I plant those seeds and also share them.

From my domesticated supply, I then harvest one of the leaves of leeks that have three leaves, and let them flower. Those leaves never make it to the kitchen. Current year transplants get partial shade from a discarded patio umbrella for the whole season, and require some rain watering for the first few weeks.

Fiddleheads I bring a few plastic bags and I take a picture of where I harvested then and they get frozen until the ferns there are mature and I can double check there are no bracken that have invaded them. Once I am double sure they aren't bracken, they are rinsed, flash boiled, then baked in a casserole with other things.

Nettles, I need to no further than my garden, asparagus you have to scout out once they're mature so you know where to find roadside asparagus but I also grow them...

Wild spinach, again, garden. Most things I forage for I need go no further than zone one.

Thumbleberries I get the plastic bags and go roadside picking, and apples, cherries or plums I scout out the flowers this time of year so I can go back and find them later -- cardboard boxes.

Ra Kenworth wrote:

Fiddleheads I bring a few plastic bags and I take a picture of where I harvested then and they get frozen until the ferns there are mature and I can double check there are no bracken that have invaded them. Once I am double sure they aren't bracken, they are rinsed, flash boiled, then baked in a casserole with other things.

I ate fiddlehead ferns about 30 years ago, once. Partway through eating them I pulled one apart to see what it looked like and it was filled with bugs! I've been afraid of them since. If you have any advice, I'd like to hear some encouragement and work up the guts to try them again.

And.... zone 0!!! Wow, I've never seen anyone from Zone 0! Looks like it's only part time?

Kim Wills wrote:

I ate fiddlehead ferns about 30 years ago, once. Partway through eating them I pulled one apart to see what it looked like and it was filled with bugs! I've been afraid of them since. If you have any advice, I'd like to hear some encouragement and work up the guts to try them again.

And.... zone 0!!! Wow, I've never seen anyone from Zone 0! Looks like it's only part time?

That's a really unfortunate experience you had with fiddleheads! Perhaps it was a case of Murphy's Law...

I can only say if they are washed, boiled, then baked, I don't know of any bugs that would hurt you. I definitely would try looking somewhere else -- and not too close to the waterline -- and peel some of those fiddleheads open to check them and if you're afraid of getting bitten to wear nitrile gloves while you do that. When I rinse, I use salted water -- not sure if makes a difference but as a kid, I got to wash the lettuce which was usually fairly slug ridden so using salted water became a habit. Perhaps weight down your fiddleheads to submerge them and see if the bugs try to escape?

The first year I ate fiddleheads I didn't know bracken will cause stomach cancer and I was lucky they were ostrich fern like I thought they were.

Is it possible a guardian angel had your back with those bug ridden ferns?

Zone zero:
Yes, if you click on my profile I have two zones. I spend slightly more than half my time in Iqaluit Nunavut (although I have considered Campbell's Bay which is way further north, and also Baker Lake which is very beautiful and plenty of nice fishing, however my son lives in Iqaluit. It's about 66 latitude. In summer it never really gets dark.

The rest of my time I have a homestead in the Gatineau mountains in zone 4a at 600' which is where I am until June 1, and back "south" the end of June.

Tiny blueberries, cranberries and a few other berries grow in Iqaluit and I have brought back berries and poked them in among my wild blueberries and will continue to do this, hoping some will grow. They also have willow which grows to about 3-4" in height. It is very beautiful and full of flowers in June and I look forward to returning. Many people bring food with them. I brought arctic char south and will bring vegetables north!