Foraging!

[benali]

I'm going to try eating some of the wild things that grow in my yard this year (I'm in the great lakes area). Then I'm going to encourage the things that taste good to grow more here next year.

I've got dandelions (doesn't everybody?), purslane, garlic mustard, pine cones, and a selection of wild weeds. I might even try getting a little sap from my several silver maple trees next season (looks like this takes effort but it might be fun).

To learn about foraging, I've tried some of the links from the websites http://www.Foraging.com and http://www.Foragersharvest.com.

Anybody else harvesting their edible wild stuff and/or domesticating it for future use?

Any good foraging website recommendations?

Thanks.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't try domesticating it, but I do eat the purslane and lambsquarters. One year my church did make maple syrup from our sugar maple trees. It was a ton of work but the syrup came out wonderful. I use my flowers too - most recently I made lilac ice cream and redbud flower jelly.

[!potatoes!]

i eat lots of wild stuff. early spring is the best - shoot time! solomon's seal, milkweed, smilax...i also always encourage lambsquarter in the garden. my favorite summer greens.

[valley]

Lambsquarter? That's a new one for me. Like to know more about it. Googled it, it looks like a weed we have everywhere.

Richard

[rainbowgardener]

lambsquarters is aka wild spinach. Use it like regular spinach.

[benali]

RBG.... lilac ice cream, that sounds yummy! Maple syrup... sounds exactly like what I've read. Lots of work, do it only if you consider it fun. I will do it one time, for sure, then we'll see about the future after that.

Thanks for the tip about lambsquarter. We have a lot of that around here. I will definitely try it! Thanks.