Foraging Reflections
This year we thought we were going to do it all. Is that every farmers thoughts their first year? It is possible. While we didn’t get to every project that we wanted to, we did learn quite a few things about farming, foraging, and ourselves…
One of the “projects” we didn’t really get to this year was foraging. That was in part due to the drought Maine is experiencing this year, but also due to the lack of time we had to get out into nature for an extended period of time. Many of you know Sean and I also work a couple other jobs to pay our bills while we get the farm stabilized, that along with a full-time mushroom farmer gig, sadly, leaves little time for us to wander around in the woods.
In the Pacific Northwest, where we learned much (but not all!) of our mushroom knowledge, I (Cat) apprenticed with a local herbalist on wild crafting herbal medicine. During that time, I honed in on my foraging skills and spent every day that summer collecting, listening, and learning from the plants, whether harvesting them for medicine or not. While listening to the plants, they would give me signs to what creations they wanted to play in and if I should actually harvest them at all.
My mentor, Suzanne Tabert, explained some harvesting guidelines for wild foraging: is it legal to forage there? Is this plant/mushroom threatened or endangered? Do they spray this area (if there are power lines around then the answer is most likely a yes)? Is the plant stand/mushroom patch large enough to harvest only 15% and that be enough for the project you are creating/dish you are eating? Have you properly identified what you are foraging for? Is this an area where dogs poop or pee? What did this plant stand look like in the previous years? These are all important questions I ask myself before harvesting. I would also like to note that when we forage, we always ask permission from the plants/mushrooms to harvest them and leave a gift in return (hair, tobacco, a song, a story…) to show our respect for them. We also always thank the medicine for providing its life for us.
When foraging with those questions above in your mind, we are foraging ethically & sustainably: leaving enough plants or mushrooms around for them to go to seed or sporulate and create new life. This ensures abundant foraging opportunities for the future! While we were lucky enough to forage for medicinal mushrooms (Reishi, Chaga, turkey tail, and birch polypore), we followed the guidelines above (got some photos of previous years patches from friends for reference) & that meant we were unable to provide wild culinary mushrooms to the people this year: the conditions just weren’t perfect.
With climate trends changing, we are changing our habits, including foraging habits. There are plants and fungi out there that we are seeing less and less of. This of course, makes me incredibly sad. Foraging has been my happy place: thinking about it, scouting for new areas to explore, coming back to the same areas in different seasons to see the changes, making medicine with the foragables, seeing peoples joy or health improve after working with the plants/mushrooms… So instead of foraging for the most exciting, sought out thing, we’re changing our perspective slightly: invasive species and weeds.
The invasive plants and weeds hold incredible nutrition and medicinal qualities, as well as being great food stuffs (think everyones favorite (well my favorite) weed: dandelion, the whole plant is edible and medicinal). They can also be insanely abundant and are encouraged to harvest! Always make sure the area you are harvesting in is not sprayed, as many weeds and invasive species are.
I’m still mulling over thoughts on “invasive” mushroom species, I don’t often hear of mushrooms or fungi as being invasive. However, there is a list of invasive fungi species on wikipedia, but many of them are not mushrooms… think blight, rust, and even cankers on some trees are from invasive fungi. I do see the term “naturalized” sometimes when researching mushrooms, which makes me think they are benefitting someone (humans maybe because they’re edible and delicious: i.e. the golden oyster’s (Pleurotus citrinopileatus) first wild observation was in North America in 2012) and not parasitizing anything or anyone. I wonder if an edible parasitic mushroom from like the jungle were to start growing in North America and we were to seek it out while foraging, would we call it invasive or naturalized?
So anyways, with all that said, we may have some foraged mushrooms for the people, but it may not happen consistently for a couple years. There is another reason for this as well: we are newish here! Sean is a Portland, ME native, but it has been a while since he has lived here. I have visited before we moved out here, but we didn’t end up foraging. We are still learning the land, it’s a process you cannot rush. We like to work with nature, to help steward the abundance.
We appreciate your understanding and we hope you have fun(gi) out there! I’m not sorry for the pun.
-Cat
