Now is the Time for Research. 

I can barely wait for the first fiddleheads to pop up, the ramps to come forth and the morel mushroom to start showing its head, but during this cold season I spend the time researching as much as possible for plants I do not know, or new ways to cook my favorite edibles.

An example being, for many years, I have only picked the tops off of the fiddlehead fern, just to learn two years ago the young stock is just as tasty and as the edible.

A couple examples of needed knowledge would be the following:

• Roots and Tubers- best to harvest in the early spring or in the fall. In numerous resources. I have found that they a  full of carbohydrates at these times and they are converted to sugar as the soil warms. 
• Shoots and leaves- Knowing the plant and the season to harvest these is very important and different for each edible. For some of the edibles in this area, the older the leaf becomes, the more bitter or tougher the edible is. 

The Taste of the Wild is a wonderful online guide, showing different resources for edibles,

Wild edibles are not just for salads.

Often when picking my edibles to cook with or to add to a salad, I will find leaves of plants to add to a tea, or I will go out in my backyard on a hunt to create an herbal tea.

Herbal teas are very easy to create and many of the items are right in your back yard. A good beginning instructional on teas can be found in About Home.

Part of the joy of wildcrafting or foraging is learning new plants in anticipation of spring coming and the hunting begins.

Mushrooming -Gills or Ridges

 In many of the beginner mushrooming books, that I have read, it talks about never picking mushrooms with gills and I have to agree for new mushroom hunters, with a few exceptions. Let’s look at gills and ridges and talk quickly about the difference between gills and ridges . Being able to identify ridges opens new doors for mushroom hunting. 

Gills tend to have the following characteristics:

•          They are uniformly attached to the cap of a mushroom.
•          They appear as small blades or fins.
•          Gills can fork or can be a mixture of long and short blades.
•          Gills easily break.

Ridges have the following Characteristics:

• Ridges are irregular (there is no pattern).
• They are part of both the stem and the cap.
• They do not break easily.
  

 Notice how the ridges run down the stem in the photo above and in the top photo the gills stop. 

Spend some time researching mushrooms with gills and mushrooms with ridges, become familiar with them and their differences. 

Never Eat a Mushroom You Are Not Sure Of and Never Eat a Edible Wild Mushroom Uncooked. 

I have found numerous references that say that raw mushrooms contain small amounts of toxins, but  are destroyed by cooking them thoroughly.

When hiking, we don’t have to pick any mushrooms; I find it fun and educational to be able to identify a mushroom. When I find a mushroom that I am 100 % sure that it is edible I am excited to bring it home.