Here at Chiot’s Run, we love finding foods that we can forage from the wild without having to cultivate them. Each year we learn more and more about wild edible plants and we’re enjoying the nutritional benefits they add to our diet. It can be an overwhelming and scary thing to learn about wild foraged food. Knowing what you can and can’t eat from the forest is one of those skills that’s been lost along the way. There are plenty of books you can read and websites where you can learn how to identify free edible wild food (see below for a few that you might find useful).
Of course you want to make sure that you’re correct on your plant identification before harvesting and eating something since some plants are poisonous. It’s also wise to harvest and eat just a small amount to make sure someone isn’t allergic to the new wild food.
I’d also suggest taking it slow and learning a few new wild foods each year. When you do it this way to learn to properly identify different edible plants during the entire growing season and you can practice cooking and using them medicinally. It can be overwhelming to try to learn them all at once and the information is often forgotten. You also run the risk of making a mistake when harvesting if you’re not 100% percent familiar with what the plants look like during each season. We make it a point to learn a few more wild foods each year. Several years ago we started eating morels that we find and last year we started eating a lot of garlic mustard as well as bittercress. We started using plantain for medicinal purposes and a few other weeds. This year I’m hoping to harvest some nettles for tea.
This summer we’ve been enjoying a lot of wild greens and flowers in our spring salads. Since I didn’t get any spinach overwintered, we’ve been relying on garlic mustard, bitter cress, wild violets, and dandelions for our salads. We’ve also been enjoying wild flowers, they really make the salads beautiful (who wouldn’t want to eat one of these salads). The wonderful thing about wild plants is that they’re nutritional powerhouses. This is one of the reasons we started eating more wild foods. We’re always looking for ways to ramp up the nutritional quality of what we eat.
As with plants you grow in your garden you want to make sure the wild plants you harvest are not in an area that is sprayed with pesticides or other chemicals. I’d stay away from plants in ditches along the road as well since they’re most likely covered in exhaust and chemical and salts from the road. I’d also stay away from gathering near large commercial farms since they use lots of chemicals. I found a few nice stands of wild asparagus, but they’re in a ditch right by a field that they spray with sewer sludge, so no wild asparagus on our plates.
Do you harvest any foods from the wild? What’s your favorite wild food to eat?
Susy can also be found at Chiot’s Run where I blog daily about gardening, cooking, local eating, beekeeping, and all kinds of stuff. You can also find me at Simple, Green, Frugal, Co-op.
Not Dabbling In Normal 
I’ve been interested in wild foods for a couple of years now but mostly focused on easy to identify stuff like wild garlic and fruits. I’ve have kicked into a higher gear this year though after we moved house to nearer woodland/countryside and got a dog who likes walking in said woodland/countryside!
Every day I try to collect a plant or flower to practise identifying things and learning about different habits/environments. My favourite is still wild garlic – so tasty, versatile and prolific around here – but nettle soup is on my recipe list for the next few weeks.
I very much like learning from experts about this type of thing – especially since there are many poisonous lookalikes out there! – and take advantage of wild food walks whenever possible. I wish I had the opportunity to eat more wild food cooked by pros though so I know what it should taste like when I cook it.
For UK based wild foodies, Eat Weeds is a great site.
Thanks for the list of resources! I keep intending to pick up a few manuals but never seem to get into town to do so. Lately we’ve been enjoying dandelion greens and chickweed in our salads, and yesterday went mushrooming without any luck. Perhaps today!
We have have found exactly one -1- morel. The turkeys have scratched up the usual spots. Have you ever eaten one half of one morel? I do like dandelion greens as long as they haven’t flowered and violets are pretty in a salad, but I’ve tried garlic mustard raw and they were a bit bitter for us, even in this cool weather. I know there are other mushrooms that are edible but I really don’t know which and wouldn’t trust just looking in a book.
I have picked and used stinging nettles in teas for my garden…I have also heard you can use it as a hair conditioner! I have yet to make into tea for myself…I’m going to try that next week! Kim
I just did a post about our morel hunting. We’ve gotten over 2lbs!! Really a good year here.
Jody in PA
I’ve been enjoying the weed-eater over on youtube. There is so much to learn.
And you’re absolutely right. Better learn all about a few plants than half about many!
Asparagus I believe is the only wild food we gather.
Though you can find chokecherries, apples, and plums growing around old farmsteads that you can usually get permission to pick.
Mmmm, morels! For the past two year’s we’ve searched our local woodlands with no success for the elusive morel. We’re hoping for better luck this year.
Nettles are wonderful steamed with garlic, by the way! Just make sure you cook them thoroughly to eliminate the sting.
Chickweed is another favorite “weed” for salads. It has a delicious, buttery watercress-like flavor.
My son-in-law is the best harvester I have ever seen. Every time we go hiking he shows us thing we can eat in the wild. He grew up on the mountains of Hondurus and learned from childhood what he could and could not eat.
Now he is passing that on to his children and they are great about spotting berries etc. when we are hiking or just walking somewhere.
I think it is a talent and we sure like having him around.