That was me too, as a kid. "There's food, growing wild, that we can eat, for free?" Mom: "Yeah but, most of it's poisonous, so we don't eat it" and this all started because my mom, her friend and I would go down to the river to pick buckets of blackberries, for freezer jam- I was 4. So I remember always going up to her and asking if something is edible and she'd freak out, hit it out of my hand and say, "I dont know, it's probably poisonous" and that had always bothered me, so I quit wondering. So now that I'm older and have my own child, it's a proud moment when he comes up to me and asks me if something is edible and I can tell him yes because most plants aren't poisonous like my mom thought and now, I get to educate her and my son, like I have done with myself. We go on foraging trips now, for all kinds of things, throughout the seasons. Our favorite is the pine nuts. The first time, I foraged in front of my mom, where golden currants. She freaked out, when she seen me just grab them and eat them off the plant. "How do you know that not poisonous??" Me: "only one way to find out!" I already what they were and knew she didn't and would freak. Then gave her a 15 min botany lesson and that's when and what peaked her interest. What peaked mine were mushrooms. Mycology as a whole. But, happy times when out foraging.
When I look at the Jars of home-made, hedgerow foraged jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles stacked up in my pantry, I too feel a burst of pride and a sense of the riches of the countryside. It’s harder for me to forage as I live in an urban environment, but carefully looking in hedges and parks, waste ground and garden, I can find enough of natures riches!
I have loads of wild strawberries. The secret is that the leaves are extremely nutritious, they even have iodine. the fruits are wonderful but the leaves are the prise. To make fruit leather, I use applesauce as a base and less strawberry, 75% applesauce to 25% of your favorite berries that extends your precious berries. To make them last fresh a little longer, wash with a water vinegar mix this holds off molding.
I just found your channel; I am so annoyed -- poke weed, acorns, and now wild strawberries -- ALL THE THINGS I'VE BEEN MISSING OUT ON! My entire life I've been warned not to eat these toxic plants, and am just now discovering they are not the dangerous things I thought! I have been foraging chickweed, wood sorrel, and bamboo off my property but the aforementioned "toxic" plants will be added to the list for next year. I've also purchased a couple of the books on foraging you suggested. Thank you so much for sharing and for the wonderful content!
We do have wild strawberry all over North Texas. Like yourself I first stated noticing them as a child and have spotted them at various properties over the years. A lot very well could have been transplanted from North Carolina where most of our sod is grown but they seem very hardy and as long as the grass is living and there is some shade the strawberry's come back year after year.
THANK YOU, FINALLY. When I was new to the area and wanted to put in a garden in my little 4ftx4ft mulch patch at my apartment, I ordered "exotic" strawberry seeds, and they all ended up growing into woodland wilds. They're ever-bearing, so they bloom like crazy (they even tried to in late November after we had a strong hard freeze and a warm up the next day). The fruits are small, the biggest one being about an inch long, and maybe about as wide as my pinkie. But the foliage that these little plants produce is incredibly dense, and I've been desperately looking for resources to tell me what Strawberry *HERBAL* tea is like, and couldn't find the answer until I came here. Thank you so, so much.
As a kid I liked to pick strawberries in forests but never got to eat them Caus my mum told me foxes pee on it and I’ll get worms. Since then I like finding them but never eating 😅
I remember coming across a wild strawberry when I was young! I didn’t really like strawberries then, but I was playing in a field near my house when I came across a red berry that looked just like a strawberry! Not knowing better, I picked one and ate it because I was curious and excited at the idea of berries growing right there under my nose! It was phenomenal, I felt like I could taste the sun itself. I ran home excited to share my findings with my Mom (who scolded me for sampling unknown berries) and she confirmed it! I’ve liked strawberries ever since.
This is so funny to me! I live in Alabama and my uncle would go into the yard and pick “wild strawberries” and I’d do it to… I just now learned that they were the mock ones! All this time when I saw wild strawberry stuff I made a face because the ones we ate didn’t taste like sweet strawberries they were just tasteless berries! Now I know I was fooled! It was still fun to see my moms and grandparents faces when we’d eat them though.
