(Part 2) Top products from r/foraging

Hi! I know I'm a bit late to the game as you posted this yesterday, but I split my time between Los Angeles and Boulder, CO and have done quite a bit of foraging in both!

I'd recommend picking an area or hike you love, and becoming your own personal expert on it. Return to it again and again all throughout the year, so you get thoroughly acquainted with what grows there and how it looks at each stage of its growth throughout the seasons. You'll start seeing familiar (plant) friends everywhere, and will be pleasantly surprised to constantly discover new ones, too! I even do this in my own neighborhoods and local parks--not just trails and hikes.

I'd also highly recommend this book, Foraging the Rocky Mountains. It's wonderfully written and has great photos; it's been a really helpful guide for me in CO. It even has some fun and creative recipes that will get you inspired.

Wishing you lots of success out there! If you want more specific tips on foraging in the Boulder area, feel free to PM me. I also have a ton of helpful links and reading if you're super into it.

As others have mentioned jam, canned and wine are great. You can also dry or freeze. Here's a great book for preserving : putting food by. I've never made wine from purple plums, only golden. But I'm sure it would be yummy. Enjoy!

Mushrooms website

Mushrooms book

I picked up this book for my own area. I love the way it is laid out. All the best edibles at the front of the book, followed by all the worst toxics. Then they break it down by physical form: cap and stem with gills, cap and stem with pores, etc. Color photos, key ID traits are highlighted in green text. It's an amazing book for my area and it's perfectly pocket sized.

Here's a post I made about an introduction to foraging that you may find useful:

> Foraging is something that I've been doing now for a few years, it can have a somewhat steep learning curve to start out. I figure though if I can do it, so can anyone here. You'd be surprised at what's growing all around at any given time (well, except Winter).

>Getting into this is thankfully not expensive at all, especially when compared to other hobbies which tend to have a high cost of entry. What you'll need is a good book to start out with. I was lucky enough to have a friend help show me the ropes and he gave me his old book that he started out with. With that said though, you may not want to use this one in particular, while this features a lot of areas, it's pretty specific to East Coast USA (with the exception of Florida). You should choose a book that covers the local flora of your area. Yes you could find all of the information contained online, but when you're out trying to find this stuff in the wild sun glare, sweat, and other general yuckiness will make your searches and subsequent identifications difficult if not impossible.

> Also, whichever book you choose will help you learn some of the basics like leaf formations and what their characteristics are. I'll list a few here, but this is by no means a complete list:

> Basal Rosette: This formation is low to the ground with leaves and/or stalks that radiate outward. Here is a picture of a dandelion which has a basal rosette shape.

> Feather Compound Leaf- Which are leaves on each side (even with one another) and also having a terminating leaf. Staghorn Sumac has a Feather Compound leaf shape: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Rhty_002_lhp.jpg/800px-Rhty_002_lhp.jpg

> Palmate Compound Leaf- Leaf that has a set of leaflets radiating out from a center (similar to a basal rosette, but not on the ground) usually on a stem or vine. The toxic plant Virginia Creeper has this shape.

> Alternate Leaves: These are leaves that alternate from side to side and are not even like compound leaves. Spicebush has an alternate leaf shape.

> Another thing you want to look at which can help you identify a plant is to see if the leaf is toothed or not. For example, raspberry and blackberry leaves are toothed as seen in this picture of blackberry.

> Let's do a mach identification (to the best of my ability anyway). Let's say that you're walking along the edge of a forest and you happen upon this plant. Let's take a close look at its characteristics:

> The first thing you'll notice is the long oval shaped leaves. A closer inspection of the leaf and you'll notice that it has rounded teeth. Here take a closer look: http://i.imgur.com/Ep1eufX.jpg.

> Next you have the distinctive trumpet shaped flowers.

> Lastly, these's little nodules on the stem.

> This is where you pull out your handy-dandy guide and start skimming. As you go across picture after picture of plants you see one that has similar flowers and start to read. Matching each characteristic of the plant you discover (trumpets): Jewelweed which has a plethora of medicinal uses and is edible.

> Considerations and Warnings:

> You have to be 100% sure of your identification otherwise you could mistakenly consume a poisonous plant that will kill you. The worst part that is that it may not even be instant. Some Amanita mushrooms take 3 weeks to shutdown your liver. This is going to scare a few of you away, but don't let it. As long as you have your guide and the plant has met all the identifying characteristics you should be fine. But, if you're still unsure snap a picture or collect a bit and cross-reference it with a few sources.

> Don't worry if you don't get this right away. Like I said it has a somewhat steep learning curve and when I was starting out I almost threw in the towel a couple of times. I'm still seeing new things each and every time I go out. Take your time and start out with some easy stuff to acclimate yourself to being a plant detective.

> Two heads are better than one. Grab a friend so that they can help you out. They can grab the book while you look closer at the leaves. They may also spot something you missed.

> * Know the pest/poisonous plants in your area. It's best to learn to identify and stay the hell away from poison ivy, poison oak, hogweed, virginia creeper as soon as possible.

> Have fun and once you get your foraging feet wet check out /r/foraging for more stuff.

Here's some of my previous identifications if you're interested:

• http://imgur.com/a/RW3yG
  
  
• http://imgur.com/a/1u5Oe
  
  
• http://imgur.com/a/NyA1v

[Plants of Coastal British Columbia: Including Washington, Oregon and Alaska by Jim Pojar]
(https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1551055325/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1977604502&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1594853665&pf_rd_m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&pf_rd_r=ZE56QP0A00SH8K6G23SM)This book here is my holy bible for foraging and IDs. I know you are in Oregon, but I'm on Vancouver Island which is practically in the US and as west coast as it gets. Many of the plants growing where I am grow in parts of Oregon too. Consider fining this book or one similar. IMO a good Id book with images is the most important thing to carry with you (aside from gloves and a pocket knife).



Here are a few books I do not own but have read or heard people recommend.

Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West by Michael Moore

Pacific Northwest Foraging by Douglas Deur

Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt to Plate by John Kallas

Keep filling your head with that information. Once you get a good grasp on foraging plants & fungi, you might be interested in picking up these books too:

What the Robin Knows

Reading Nature's Signs

How to Read Water

After you've gone through those, you go out into the woods.....

You know the scene in Superman, where he's a kid at school and locks himself in the closet because he's totally overwhelmed with sensory information? That's what going into the woods is like. Everywhere you look, more information coming in than you can possibly process.

This is a copy/paste of one of my comments...

I always recommend this; is to contact the local agriculture extension office or local community college of the area you live in. These local experts either personally know or they personally know who to contact regarding foraging info. Books by Samuel Thayer and Euell Gibbons are excellent, but they cover a very large area to be able to sell to a large audience. (Which is fine...)

But, most people spend 99% of their time in just one local area. Learn to key and classify the local plants here, and then all the sudden the other books in other areas start making more sense. https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784351 is a good book.

Also check MeetUp for any local groups in the area too.

You're talking to the author of this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edible-Mushrooms-Foragers-Britain-Europe/dp/0857843974

You can trust it. :-D

This is the book and website I use(d) in tandem to study and learn intro level botany. Its been incredibly helpful in my journey to learn plant ID of the southern Appalachian but is not region-specific. They both encourage the learning of plants by families.
http://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784351
http://www.botanyeveryday.com/

The Forager Handbook by Miles Irving is very thorough in it's number of edibles, but not fantastic to carry around or for ID. I combine it with The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose. I pick a couple plants from the Forager Hand book at a time and look for them on a walk.
Another book is the River Cottage Hedgerow by John Right, in fact all three of his book are well done; Mushrooms and Edible Seashore.

The book Coming Home to Eat may be of interest. Someone from the Southwest decided to eat hyper-locally for a year, and he discusses what can be found in that region and goes on a foraging trek, etc.

I think he was in Arizona, but it should still be pretty relevant to you. I read it many years ago though.

I’ve got a number of mushroom books, some geared towards general identification, others specifically towards edible mushrooms. I really like my Audubon field guide for general identification, but my favorite for edible mushrooms is The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff.

Dude...you realize that Sergei is a published author and well respected foraging "expert".

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Edibles-Practical-Foraging-Identification/dp/1583946020/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Sergei...nice to know you're on Reddit. Bought (and thoroughly enjoyed) your books.

My book. :-) http://amzn.com/1583946020

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081FY6N5X/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_FoiZDb54TVPTY

Alot of options there.

[copy/paste from another recent thread]

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Hello, neighbor.

Weeds of Kentucky and Adjacent States

Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians

Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians

The Cherokee Herbal: Native Plant Medicine from the Four Directions

PDF - A guide to medicinal plants of Appalachia - US Forest Service

edit: oh yeah...A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America

Southeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles

Disclaimer - I've only used a few of these, but I've ogled the rest at the library and health food store.

That was actually the wrong one, but I doubt that one would be useless. This is the one I meant to link.

https://www.amazon.com/Edible-Plants-Western-United-States/dp/091101084X