a wild food walk along Stoney Hill Rd.

  

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet  been discovered"

                                     - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1878) cited in Kallas

On the very same morning  that I was horrified by lawns I was completely inspired by the huge quantity and variety of wild foods growing on the roadside.

I am literally a day-one beginner wild food enthusiast and today Colin and I went out searching, armed with a couple of new favourite books:

Edible Wild Plants (Eastern/Central North America) - Lee Allen Peterson         

Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate - John Kallas.

Well, "searching" is an overstatement. There is food everywhere and in this climate it is abundant, lush and thriving. 

I won't label any of my photos (like I said, class A beginner  and I wouldn't want to be responsible for giving anyone an incorrect identification of a plant) but I'm pretty sure we found (and occasionally tasted); wild spinach, hairy lettuce, wild strawberry, garlic mustard, elderflower, wild raspberry (no fruit yet, but soon!), chamomile, curly dock, 
elder flowers, dandelion and lady's thumb (aka 'redleg'). And there was so much more that we half-identified and wondered about. It's a little trickier identifying plants without any flowers or seed pods.

Many wild foods are better or are only edible when cooked in particular ways and Kallas' book is excellent in this kind of instruction. He is a real connoisseur of the stuff. Peterson's guide seems more comprehensive and scientific in it's presentation and is excellent for field identification. Together they appear to be a good introductory education in finding things to eat in unexpected places.