Into the Woods

Feb 23, 2016
2 min read

Here in the Willamette Valley we have an abundance of foraging available. We have high desert about 1.5 hours away and coast about 1 hour away. The variety of plants and fungi available is endless.

We are learning to forage for ourselves. So far I have come up with a few items and time of year we can gather while going for our long weekend drives and while fishing.

Winter we have less available which is fine by me. Here it is cold, wet and super muddy. Hedgehog Mushrooms and Dandelion greens are the two that I found should be easy to identify and store fairly well. The mushrooms can go in the freezer while the dandelion greens and roots I will dry and use for herbal blends and beverages.

In the Spring Oregon is wet but oh so green. We will be heading out one day soon to find nettles, mallow, curly dock, cattails, douglas fir tips, fiddle heads and morel mushrooms. Most of these willbe dried and stored since they are great medicinal herbs. A few of the others will be turned into beverages or teas.

Summer time we have an abundance of wild berries. We will be trying to get to as many as we can. Some of them include; blackberries, oregon grape, huckleberries and salmon berries. Along with berries their are other herbs and spices most I gather for medicinal purposes. Chammomile, dandelion greens, blackberry leaf. Im sure as we are out and about we will be learning to identify even more edible plants and fungi on our adventures.

The harvest time. So everyone knows fall is the time of the harvest. Available to us we have walnuts, rose hips, elder berries, ginkgo nuts and chantrelle mushrooms. Most of this will be stored as well or turned into beverages. Elderberries and rose hips are wonderful for your immune system and can create an amazing health tonic.

As we go for our walks and fishing trips I will document and add more blogs in the future. Im also continuing our education to find more food we can forage for.