Wild edibles of early spring: Now is the time to start learning about wild edibles.

My wife and I greatly enjoy foraging for and harvesting wild edibles when camping. When we're a week into a canoe trip, we really crave fresh greens, fruits, and veggies. Dehydrated meals are great, but there's just something deeply satisfying about supplementing one's meals with freshly harvested plants.

Early spring's an especially good time for beginners to get into this because there are not many plants out to bewilder and overwhelm you. Also, many wild edibles are best in the spring, as most get bitter by late spring and summer. So, if you've always wanted to improve your knowledge of wild edibles, now (late winter) is the time to get a hold of a few books on the subject, thumb through them, and familiarize yourself with the ones that are common to your own area and bloom in early spring. You will have greater success if, in addition to a field guide, you have a search image in your mind of what the spring edibles in your area look like.

Here's a video my wife and I made last spring to introduce people to the pleasures of this.
http://youtu.be/bUSUOGlQRRg

And here is a link to some photos of just some of the wild edible plants and the meals we've enjoyed with them while camping, and at home too: http://s1122.photobucket.com/albums/...ild%20Edibles/

Hope this helps,
- Martin

That was great: I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for sharing.

Great vid. Thanks.

Great video PM :) thanks for taking us along! You two make a good team ;)

One cautionary note: Although the plants you identified in the video are hard to misidentify, there are many young shoots that appear in early spring that can look alot like other, not so wholesome ones. Someone near me recently picked what he thought was ginseng, but instead brought home poison hemlock. The trained eye, of course, can pick these out even in the unfurled sprout stage, but beginners maybe not.

Oh, be careful when digging up trout lilly bulbs, that you don't accidentally get a Jack in the Pulpet corm mixed in there.....ouch......

I wish I had more Spring Beauties where i'm at. I have one little patch but dare not gather from it because there are noi others anywhere I gather :(

Again, thanks for the vid!!

Had to send a rep for this. Since I watched it I can't stop dreaming of spring........ Come soon spring...come soon.....

After much searching I finally figured out how to send rep :clap:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mountainmark

One cautionary note: Although the plants you identified in the video are hard to misidentify, there are many young shoots that appear in early spring that can look alot like other, not so wholesome ones. [...] Oh, be careful when digging up trout lilly bulbs, that you don't accidentally get a Jack in the Pulpet corm mixed in there.....ouch......

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Thanks for the rep and for the feedback.
You're right about your cautionary note, especially about tubers and corms that one might accidentally come across. I will consider adding an annotation to the video urging that one only harvest tubers which one can trace downward from an identifiable plant. Tubers of different species of plants can and do grow next to one another and one has to take care not to carelessly collect whatever tubers happen to be clustered close to one another. Just because tubers and corms are growing closely together doesn't mean they are all of the same species.

Thanks again,
- Martin

Prompted by Mountainmark's cautionary point above, I've added a text annotation to the video.

Thanks for your feedback Mountainmark.
- Martin

No prob Martin. We did a wild food class last late spring. I was thinking early spring would be nice but the professionals I hired refused early spring because the plants would be too immature to get a good feel for them. But the plants you ID in the video are not the kind that have an indistinct sprout stage, at least, if they do, I don't get out there early enough to catch it. Lol.

I have accidentally eaten a Jack in the Pulpit corm once. I had heard that trout lilly bulbs taste best before they have begun to sprout, so I went out as soon as the ground thawed and started digging in a known spot. After I had a handfull I washed them in the stream and gobbled them down. I guess I wasn't careful enough and had gathered a JitP corm. I knew what it was almost instantly because I had read about the affects of Oxalic Acid. Yup, it's just like taking a mouthfull of wasps!! Lasted about ten minutes. From then on I wait until I can follow the leaf stem down. I suppose I still should have known by the corm but they all looked darn similar to me.

Cheers! mark

Wild leeks are my all time favorite! I have been searching for them in NB for years and have yet to find any even though they do grow here in a few places so last time I was in Ontario I picked a suitcase full and planted them when I came back here. Only problem is they are soooo slow at growing, so I only pick a few every year.

Awesome video as always Martin!

Excellent vid, thanks for sharing. It's a special time of year after waiting all winter for those old familiar tastes.

I am new to this kind of stuff but I would like to become familiar with wild edibles and that video gave me a good start so thank you for that