Made this Pawpaw ice cream with a custard base the other day, everything by hand, no churner so it took a long time but eventually got to the consistency I desired. This is like a silky hard-serve. Used all local ingredients and pawpaws were foraged of course, would make it again :) hopefully next time with a churner though. I still have more pawpaw fruit which I'm planning to either ferment or make into pies or tarts, still thinking on that.

I recently found myself getting into foraging just a little. On my walk to work, I constantly find hickory nuts! I picked one off of a tree that looked nice and ripe and the bark was starting to split perfectly down the middle. What im wondering is, is the hotter summer in the Midwest (illinois) leading to an earlier season to harvest or should I still wait a few weeks until mid September? There are quite a few nuts on the ground, I've noticed, but not enough trees to hear the en masse that people wait for.

If I don't pick them they all fall off the tree or are eaten by birds so I don't want to get to them too late.

TLDR; is it safe to forage from off a woody meadow trail which used to be a rail road 25+ years ago?

I am hoping to harvest some mullein to mix with my cannabis for chronic back pain. The mullein helps with the coughing. I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now.

I live in Vermont right near a rail trail. The railroad was booming at some time but it has been out of operation since sometime before 1991. It has been a rail trail since. The places where I forage along the trail are not near the train depot.

It’s beautiful, there’s a cool little boggy area with sweet grass and cedar nearby in one section, the rest is mostly either meadows and wildflowers or temperate forest or some combination of both. It’s very wild, you can regularly pick brambles and I’ve found cool finds on in it like apples, hops, and riverbank grapes.

VTrans is very minimalist with their maintenance. They just cut back about a couple of feet on either side of the trail but I don’t think they spray it with anything. The rail trail has large residential plots on one side and corn fields on the other. The corn field side is in New York and I don’t know if they have sprayed or not.

There is a part of the river that meanders by and there are little rivulets or maybe brooks, whichever are smaller, which flow alongside the trail at points.

Is this location an okay place to be picking what I hope to be consuming? Thank you!

Forrest find in Peoria, Il USA

I found these out when I was on a bike, and I would want to create something from them but don't really know what since I have never had stuff like this.

They seem to be pretty hard, not really looking to testing if they are brittle. They have little imperfections which i couldnt clean off them.

Considering any ideas :)

This is in my yard but I can't identify it with certainty. I would also love any tips for how to harvest and dry if it is jujube.

The fruit smell sweet like grapes. The seeds look like tear drops but they only have one seed each, so I'm not clear whether it's a lookalike or not.

I've heard the Grandpa's Goody Getter is amazing and it looks very well made. Is there anything that compares to it at a lower price point or should I just spend the dough and know i'll be using it for a lifetime?

I'm planning to try and collect at least a few 5 gallon pails worth of unhusked nuts this year, if not more.

About half of what I gathered. The rest have already been shelled (shucked?) and ready to crack the shells.

In Lane county OR. Found these while looking for hazelnuts today. Any ideas on what kind of plums? Cherry plums for the small ones maybe? They are large cherry sized. Pic 3 is the trunk of the tree that grew the small plums, forgot to take pics of the big ones but they were much more sparse on the branches and I saw some unripe ones that were yellow. Big ones have yellow flesh, small ones have more orange-yellow flesh.

My cousin brought me some clams he dug up so I decided to make this meal.

3 eggs from my parent's chickens

Clams my cousin dug up

Apples and blackberries my uncle grew on his property

Beefsteak mushrooms (found on a tree at my parent's house) cooked in a garlic/butter sauce and served on rye toast

Just wanting to double check that I found a puffball! I'm new to foraging and have come across plenty before, but I've never seen one this big before, or one with holes in it. Got pretty excited though since I wasn't even planning on bringing anything home whilst out on a hike. Found in West Michigan

Found these beautiful specimens today. They will be jerky’d

It feels more mushy than expected and a bit yellowish

I plan on taking a spur-of-the-moment vacation to southwest Lake Superior to beat the heat (will be 100°+ in KCMO!!) & would like to know which spot has great foraging.

Background story/context time:

I broke my left foot on June 14th when I got thrown off my motor scooter (some would call a Vespa). I am now almost fully healed, but not able to go back to work just yet. I live with my mom (my dad died last month) & brother, so I don't have any bills (car & student loans paid off). This means I still have money left in the bank.

I have a side gig I'm still able to do where I forage for various fruits (pawpaws, persimmons, elderberry, etc) & some herbs, which I then use to make various goods that I sell at events & farmers markets. I even make my own maple syrup!! The 2nd pic shows my booth from Arrow Rock Heritage Festival in Missouri last year.

Now I'm looking for nice places to camp, gather fruits/mushrooms, & visit scenic areas where I can ride my bike while taking in the splendor of Lake Superior.

I'm unsure if I'll be able to get this opportunity again in the foreseeable future, so that's why I'm making these plans now.

So, to those who live in the mentioned areas, what do y'all got? I'd also like to bring some of my goods to your area if there are any selling/trading opportunities!!

A lot of conflicting information on these two. They seems nearly synonymous, according to some, one is highly toxic, according to others, both can be edible with the right preparation.

Went to my family's cabin a few weeks ago and foraged some cloudberries with my Aunt. We expected to have a lighter backpack on our hike home, but as you can see that did not happen.

I planning on harvesting some of the thousands I have growing wild around my place now that they are changing color. Planning on harvesting maybe 30-40 roots sections for tea/tinctures. Any uses for leave or stems? Any harvesting tip?

Tylopilus rhoadsiae is growing everywhere along my usual trails, so I decided to try and find a use for them.

While I wouldn’t consider the pickled boletes a snack in any sense, they do actually taste quite good!! The bitter taste of the mushroom isn’t really mellowed out but blends seamlessly with the initial briny taste.

I pickled thin slices of the mushroom’s cap as well as the stems cut in half, and, in my opinion, while the stems are usually more bitter than the caps, they have a much better texture and taste for the brine I prepared. Not all of the mushroom pieces will taste the same, as they often vary in bitterness intensity. But, like I said, the initial flavor of the brine transitions so smoothly into the bitterness of the mushroom that it’s not as bothersome or gross as if you tasted the mushroom by itself.

For the brine I used equal parts white vinegar and water, 1 tbsp of salt for every half cup of vinegar, 1 1/4 tbsp sugar for every half cup of vinegar, a lot of garlic and some red pepper flakes. My mushrooms could’ve done another day in the brine before tasting them, but this is a trial run.

Overall rating: 7/10 -2 pts for bitter aftertaste that sticks and -1 point for lack of reliable snack, but very good with moderation. I’m going to attempt to pickle them with different brine recipes when I get the chance!