As more people show an interest in wild foraging, botanist Laura Reeves with Prairie Shore Botanicals near Gardenton offers some advice on harvesting wild edible plants.
She says this is a good year for wild foraging, pointing out that we do not have to look far to find edible plants.
“Even the garden weeds. It’s so easy to step into the garden and go, ‘there’s lamb’s quarters, there’s pigweed, there’s portulaca, there’s so many things in the garden,” says Reeves. “And of course, there’s berries... blueberries, saskatoons. It was a really good year for saskatoons, there’s wild raspberries.”
In the fall, she plans to harvest the roots of dandelions.
“They’re so good,” Reeves says. “They’re kind of a cross between chocolate and coffee. I roast them up, powder them, and then use them as a cocoa substitute. So, I put them in cakes, or muffins, or make drinks with them... hot cocoa. They’re just so good."
Reeves uses many wild plants and lists a variety of her favourites.
“Wild bergamot is like oregano, so I love that for seasonings. Wild mint is great but in a totally different way. Winter green, that’s really good. I love those berries in muffins, along with blueberries. They’re so good. And mushrooms, every mushroom has a different flavour and a different texture.”
While harvesting wild edibles can be a lot of fun, there can be some unpleasant side effects if you do not know what you are touching and eating.
“It's an early spring edible, but people should be careful harvesting fiddleheads (fern shoots). The ostrich fern and lady fern look very similar, and the lady fern can cause gastric upset. I know because I made that mistake many years ago. I still can't stand the smell of ferns. I thought the problem was that I hadn't cooked them well enough. I didn't know there was a lookalike. When I finally (years later) went back to where I'd harvested them, I discovered the ferns I'd collected weren't what I'd thought they were. Oops. Thankfully, it wasn't a serious mistake.”
Dill and wild parsnip also look very similar to the untrained eye.
“I've seen that confusion, too, which begs the question, "Have these people ever seen, or smelled, dill?" The only thing about wild parsnip that resembles dill is the flowers and height,” Reeves says. “The leaves don't look one little bit dill-like. People see plants, but they don't really look at them.”
Sap from wild parsnip can cause serious burns, even though the roots are edible.
Another example of similar-looking plants is the wild grape and Canadian moonseed.
“Both the leaves and berries of wild grape are edible. Canadian moonseed is poisonous,” says Reeves. “At a glance, they look very similar. They're both vines and sometimes they intermingle. But there are several ways to tell the two apart. 1) Wild grape leaves are toothed (serrated), Canadian moonseed leaves has smooth edges. 2) Wild grape has tendrils that latch onto surrounding vegetation for support (think cucumbers); Canadian moonseed has no tendrils; it winds its way around trees and shrubs (think beans).”
Reeves recommends people take in some foraging workshops to help them identify plants and learn more about their different uses. She has also written a book called Laura Reeves’ Guide to Useful Plants – From Acorns to Zoom Sticks and it is available in a number of bookstores in Manitoba, including the Mennonite Heritage Village gift shop in Steinbach.