Foraging?

[sarasvati]

Being in dire financial straits (I've been unemployed for 7 months now and my employment insurance gives me all of $36 a week), I've been looking at ways to further cut back on expenses, and aside from cruising for sales and buying second-hand, I've started to give thought to the matter of foraging for food.

I'm lucky to live in an area where my choices are pretty decent when it comes to wild food. I know where I can get fiddleheads, rhubarb, rose hips, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, crab apples, chestnuts, and blueberries when the season's right, and though that may not be much, it helps me stretch my grocery budget just a little bit further. And that's really just what I know of off the top of my head. If I start looking around, I might find even more!

Does anyone here have experience with foraging? Interested in it at all? Tips and tricks you'd like to share? I'm a little nervous about starting to forage, mostly because I haven't done it before, and any encouragement is appreciated.

Comments

[red_trillium]

A mixed suggestion here, some parks do have either native wild foods or introduced on them but there can be legal issues with collection. When I lived in the US I worked in a local park that had once been a ranch/farm. There were wild blackberries, pears and persimmons. Technically it was illegal for people to gather but I often turned a blind eye if people weren't stripping it to sell (ie--if they were taking small enough amounts that I could chalk up to being for their own/family use and not for resale). Check your local history, parks and laws. Firstly you might have a source of food you don't know about and secondly you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a ticket if someone does strictly enforce a "no gathering/no removal of plant life" rule.