Seasonal Foraging

Do you also feel the urge to walk slowly into the road in front of a car, and then dart back and forth in front of it?

 

Anyone have an ID on these shrooms?

 

I'm not much of a mushroom forager but maybe chantrelle or king oyster. The inverted cap narrows it down a bit.

 

I don't think they are Chantrelle as the ribs don't go all the way down the stalk and they aren't orange enough. At least for our area anyway.

 

Gathered close to 40# of paw paws Sunday. Cleaned a bucket full and froze the pulp, going to try and make jam with another bucket load and gave my sister a bucket. Plenty more on trees that aren't ripe yet, but many dropped. A little earlier than years past.

 

How many pounds of acorns did it take to get that much flour?
Too bad I dont have oak trees, I would try this.

 

Those look tasty. I wish they grew naturally here in CT, I'd be all over them. I might have to plant some if I can get my hands on some seeds.

 

I'm guessing less than a couple pounds. After shelling, it seems like you don't lose much in the leaching process. It's just labor intensive between removing the shells and getting the bitter tannins removed. I'm trying another batch now, but this time I'm leaving the nut meat whole in a bowl with water, and changing the water a couple times a day. We'll see in a few days if it works.

 

I’ll send all the acorns you want, just gotta pay postage…

 

That’s interesting our Paws Paws were done by September if you could find a tree that wasn’t already cleaned out. I don’t know if it’s bird’s or vermin eating immature fruit.

 

I ended up with about a mason jar worth of flour from the 6 jars I had in the leaching process. Just finished making bread with it I added some local honey and a little pumpkin pie spice to the batter to give it some autumn flavor. I’ve got another batch of flour leaching right now. I’m going to give some to my mother-in-law soon.

 

Looks real.good!!
I used mine as an add to a dish requiring flour....bread, pancakes (make my own mix, not from a box). It added its own flavor.

We were getting 5G bucket fulls...sat in front of the propaganda box and smashed nuts.

Looks like a good finish product!

 

I collected about one and a half 5 gallon pails worth of black walnuts this fall so far. Tonight I started cleaning them up, which is a messy, lengthy process to remove the husks. They don’t have to be perfect, but I’m trying to get most of the black goo off. This is a good start to the ones that I’m keeping to dry and eventually eat. I’m burying a couple dozen in protected pots over the winter, to try growing some again in the spring of 2023. This year I was reduced to one single surviving tree, after the squirrels cleaned me out. Since then their population around my house has plummeted

 

Black cherries are coming on strong right now. I wouldn’t put them up against the ones that you find in the grocery store, but for a wild, native, edible cherry I think they’re still pretty tasty. I’m going to collect a bunch more with my sons tomorrow. Two years ago was a good year for cherries with all the rain we had, last year I collected maybe a handful or two This year there seems to be another bumper crop. I’ll probably disperse the pits in the woods behind my house, so that at least a few can propagate.

 

Havent foraged for much recently.
Maybe except in looking for a life.
No firewood either.
Nice find though!

Tasty includes the satisfaction that comes with wild caught berries...

 

Too bad the pits are so big

 

Agreed. To eat them as a snack, I found 4 at a time makes sense, then spit out the pits. I have a large tupperware container full at this point so I better make jelly (or freeze them).

 

You could still make jam but use a food mill to push the pulp through and separate out the pits.

 

Same with autumn olives. Teeny berry, single pit. Very healthy.