Spring…bring on the adventure of Wild Food Foraging…nature’s food!

The first day of Spring has officially arrived (here in the southern hemisphere at least). I’ve been enjoying (and only slightly impatiently) watching the plants in my garden, and while out walking the dog, start to grow and come back to life over the last month so I can get back into foraging some wild greens.

I have enjoyed foraging for wild greens for over 10 years. It’s something that I actively became interested in when I studied Organic Horticulture and visited a wonderful permaculture property on one of our field trips. As we wandered around the rural property and looked at the various areas of cultivated vegetables living among the ‘weeds’ it was an Aha moment for me that we don’t need to rely just on growing the vegetables that we want to eat. That a lot of other vegetables, aka edible weeds or wild greens, grow out there on their own and bring the same nutritional value or same sort of quality to a meal and take NO effort to grow and come with NO cost. So why not start using them? At the time, my home was on a decent size of land in suburbia in an old, established part of town, which brought with it old trees, hedges, and craggy areas left to run wild . This very overgrown backyard became my learning ground in the early days of plant identification and gave me the ability to harvest various wild greens to try them out as food.

This then led on to every bush walk or beach walk becoming one with a secondary focus on foraging!

Over the years, this desire to forage and find fresh food has stayed with me, even though the pace of life has changed and it’s not as easy to forage on a day to day basis when I no longer have an overgrown jungle of a backyard and I’m out of the house from 7am until 5pm. But now, even with the rest of life there needing my attention, it’s something that has become important to me to bring back into my daily living in some way whether it is actually foraging or maybe finding a new recipe or a new plant to locate when I next get out there. This all fits with my desire to live life better and more mindfully and sometimes it’s just baby steps and putting in as much time as I have - even if it’s just once a week I’m winning.

I was intrigued during my travels to Italy during Spring that in a restaurant in Porto Venere, which is a bit more regional, that there was an item called “wild herbs” on the menu. Our Italian guide explained that this was common in restaurants and that the items were gathered through foraging…I saw this for myself the next day as we walked the Cinque Terre walkway with the abundance of wild edible greens out there on the cliff sides among the olive groves and grape vines. It was in Italy where the Slow Food Movement was founded, and this was certainly noticeable in particular in the smaller regional towns with easily accessible wild greens in the surrounding countryside forming a core part of this philosophy.

How do I use my wild greens?

Some of my favourite ways to use greens simply and without any effort is to add a handful of wild weeds where I might otherwise use spinach or other leafy greens to a meal such as a bolognaise sauce, a crock pot meal, an omelet, frittata, salad, or a green smoothie.

What are my top 7 wild greens for food?

1. Chickweed
2. Dandelion
3. Plantain
4. Sheep sorrel
5. Clover
6. Nettles
7. Wood sorrel

Dos

• It’s really important to clearly identify your plant! If you’re not sure, err on the side of caution and don’t eat it.
• It is great to take a walk with someone who knows about harvesting wild greens. Sometimes I see advertised on Facebook an event to take a group foraging walk. I did one of these in my early days and it was hugely helpful and it’s lovely to meet up with other like minded people.
• Find a good field guide on edible greens - there are some great authoritative books out there with really clear photos and descriptions for identification.
• Your own backyard is a great learning ground – check along fence lines, or edges of your house or garden sheds or below trees and shrubs. There are some very easily identifiable greens that you can usually find anywhere such as chickweed, clover, plantain and dandelion (although you will need to learn about the dandelion impostors even if they are not harmful). 
• Some weeds that have runner roots can easily have a piece broken off and replanted at home if you want to cultivate your own (sweet violet, nasturtium, and red clover are ones I have successfully done this with).

Don’ts

• The main rule is: Don’t take too much of what you find. You want to ensure that you don’t wipe out the whole plant or create an imbalance in the environment around it (and you want to have a place to come back to another time!)
• Only harvest from healthy looking plants.
• Avoid areas that are possibly contaminated – my favourite dog walking area probably isn’t the best place to forage so I don’t as there are not only lots of other dogs most likely using the plants to pee or poop on, but it is set down lower from the main road and housing and therefore a likely place for pesticides or stormwater run off to contaminate the plants.

Pick a plant today and add it to your meal tonight!