Lmst

Of all the #RoseHips I've tried recently, this one I found today was the most delicious. Not much flesh around the ample seeds, but by far the sweetest. Weird how the taste is fruity, but also like pea pods.

#UrbanForaging

A big round bright orange rose hip on the end of a stalk. It is wide angle lens, so the houses across the street are visible on the bottom, and the powerlines above are visible on the top.

So I ordered some #Hawthorne jelly from the internet to see if I was missing something, and holy shit is this stuff delicious. It actually tastes like a light and fruity chocolate.

Now I need to see if I can recreate this from the berries I got through #UrbanForaging.

An 11.5 oz bottle of Red Lake Nation Foods Wild Hawthorne Jelly. The berries on the label are bright red and the jelly in the bottle is a dark orange.

Okay, #Hawthorne berries have been a bit of a letdown in my #UrbanForaging journey, since while they are plentiful, they just kinda taste like bland apples, but harder to eat.

That being said, this tree over on 66th has had the best haws so far. Look at how they are so meaty that they all split their little skins.

#Portland

Branches of a tree with dozens of little red berries that kinda resemble rose hips because, just like so many other fruits, they are part of the rose family. Each berry has a split down the side that has scabbed over where the skin broke as they expanded.

Some selections to trickle out from my latest long walk. These are shaggy soldiers, Galinsoga quadriradiata. Apparently, aster family, native to Mexico and edible raw or cooked. However, these were in the ditch next to a busy road, so not this time. #nature #foraging #urbanforaging

A close-up of small aster-like flowers. The central disk is yellow, while five scalloped white petals are widely spaced around the outside edge.

A zoomed-out view to show the structure of the plant.

I didn't realize that when the #HoneyLocust in our backyard was knocked down in the ice storm, we were also losing access to a ton of free beans!

https://youtube.com/shorts/TpcGzMjVb4E

#UrbanForaging #BlackForager

I've been doing some #UrbanForaging recently, but I've had no plans of getting into #MushroomForaging due to the higher stress of getting poisoned, but now a tree down the block appears to have sprouted a Chicken of the Woods right at head height next to the sidewalk. Is that really what this is?

An orange and yellow glob of mushroom sticking out of the side of a tree.

I told my boss that I just started picking Chinese crab apples from the trees in my neighborhood, and she said that is her favorite and she ate so many of those as a child when food was scarce in soviet Ukraine.

Here's hoping that my #UrbanForaging will remain a hobby, and not become a necessity due to the #ImpendingEconomicCollapse.

These crabapples I found a few blocks down are delicious! I've heard that crabapples are not good tasting, so I wonder if these are better because they are Chinese crabapples.

Not sure how to avoid eating the seeds though since they are so small, so I just tried not to chew too hard.

#UrbanForaging

Tree branches with sparse yellowing leaves and an explosion of little red fruit that looks like berries, but are hard with the consistency of apples.

I do not understand why folks would plant #HorseChestnuts as #StreetTrees. If we are going to have spikey projectiles falling on people's heads, could we at least choose the non-poisonous variety?

#Chestnuts #UrbanForaging

My boss asked me "what new skills do you think web developers will need in two years", which gave me an opportunity to tell her about my recent efforts to learn urban foraging and how to identify edible plants in my neighborhood.

#WebDevelopment #UrbanForaging #ImpendingEconomicCollapse

Edible landscaping plant of the day. Arbutus Unedo (strawberry tree). #fruit #urbanforaging

I'm 99% sure these are edible Hawthorne berries, but in case I'm wrong, it has been nice knowing you all!

#UrbanForaging

A plate of dark red berries, with a smattering of small lobed leaves mixed in.

Small dark red berries on moss covered branches amongst small lobed leaves.

Update, the #KousaDogwood fruit are delicious! However, I understand why people don't commonly eat them, considering the sweet flesh is sandwiched between a bitter skin and hard inedible pit.

However, they are absolutely perfect for mashing up and making into shrub (drinking vinegar that you can mix into carbonated water as flavoring). In fact, I just created my most delicious batch of shrub since #INNAJam announced they were closing and I started to mix my own.

#UrbanForaging #DrinkingShrub

Pyrex mixing bowl with a half a cup of spiky red dogwood fruits.

The dogwood fruit mashed up and mixed with rice wine vinegar and sugar in a small glass jar. It is not terribly appetizing looking but tastes delicious.

A glass bottle of carbonated water with tablespoon of the strained shrub mixed into it. The water is slightly yellow-orange, and little tiny bits of fruit that slipped through the strainer a floating within.

Wait, dogwood berries are edible?!

#UrbanForaging

Bright pink berries that look like hard spiky cherries.

#Arte - Würdet ihr das essen? | ARTE #reshorts #urbanforaging - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OWvdeVOmQ-o

Here's all the dried, retted #yucca bundled up on the left. On the right is the finished product from my last batch. Beautiful, strong, cream coloured fibres.

To get there now just requires a lot of manual working of the bundle, followed by lots of and lots brushing.

This isn't particularly hard, but it is time consuming, so it's best done with company, and definitely done outside (it produces lots of chaff).

If you've got a crafts fair, ren faire, or other outdoors event in #Narrm #Melbourne that's broadly aligned with my values and would benefit from a fibre processing demonstration, hit me up.

Otherwise I'll likely be cleaning and dressing these fibres the next time I'm camping or at a picnic with friends. ❤️

#fibre #fibreArt #NeolithicTech #solarpunk #foragingAustralia #urbanForaging

Two bundles of fibre on my work stump. Each is about two foot long. The one of the left is dry and looks like a bundle of crumbly flat leaves more than anything. The one on the right has long, smooth, cream parallel threads. It also smells much nicer, but you can't tell that from the photo.

I feel like localharvest.org maybe used to be a site where users could contribute locations of publicly accessible fruit trees. I could be thinking of something else, but now it seems like a map of your local farmers markets.

This was one of the bookmarks in a folder named "Saving the World" probably circa 2002-2006

http://www.localharvest.org/

#urbanforaging

7/n

The weather is getting nice, and my family has started to complain about the smell, which means it's time to take my retting yucca leaves and hang them up on the line.

I'm trying a less-effort run with these. I've scraped a few bundles to remove the retted matter, but the rest I've hung as-is. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll just brush out when they're dry.

You can see what the process looks like in full in this thread: https://cloudisland.nz/@pjf/113625891996716616

#fibre #FibreArts #NeolithicTech #retting #foraging #ForagingAustralia #UrbanForaging

A bucket of retted yucca leaves. They are greenish brown and mushy, but you can also see the beautiful white fibres inside that have been exposed by the process.

Bundles of drying, retted yucca leaves on the clothesline. They're mostly a cream colour, which is a very good sign, and I'm hoping all the vegetative matter will flake off the fibres once they're fully dried and brushed.

One of the nice things about knowing how to #forage is that sometimes one's garden just gifts you exquisite bounties.

I had to clear the way to my work stump, which involved harvesting this absolutely perfect bunch of mustard greens that had self-seeded.

These are edible (but piquant) raw, but are much better steamed or stir-fried, much like you'd use other brassicas like broccoli or cabbage.

#foragingAustralia #UrbanForaging

A huge bunch of mustard greens, as big as my face. There's no insect damage, and every leaf and stalk are green and crisp. It's in perfect condition.

There might be a few small yellow flowers, but if so they didn't last long, as I snacked on them while putting these on ice.

Three good things in my yard today: (1) Thought I had a chough in my yard. But then I noticed the yellow eye-ring, and the fact that the borb was under the blackberry brambles. It's "orange" bill was stained with the purple fruits, but still yellow at the base. Greedy blackbird! (2) A lifer willow warbler gleaning bugs in one of the hawthorn trees. (3) The greengages are starting to ripen!

#ThreeGoodThings #birding #UrbanForaging

#UrbanForaging

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