Foragable Morganton completed the last in a series of seasonal foraging walks with a fall walk through garden and forest with Fonta Flora and Wisteria Gastropub staff led by Doug Elliott, Foragable Community’s ethnobotanist. We started with a return to the milkweed patch, where earlier in the year we ate the young milkweed greens and flower buds. After checking out the lettuce and other fall greens in the garden, we dug the crisp sweet tubers of the yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) — a perennial daisy from the Andes which adapts well to Piedmont growing conditions.
We left the garden for a walk along the forest edge to dig Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus), a native sunflower widely cultivated by Native Americans for their edible tubers, learn about the high lycopene fruits of the autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellate), and taste the fruit of the bitter orange (Poncirus trifoliata) – a hardy citrus native to northern China and Korea. We learned about the Oregon Hollygrape (Mahonia bealii), a western North American native. It is a plant to add with some care to our gardens because it can be somewhat invasive, but is very useful because the roots & stems contain the antimicrobial yellow bitter compound, berberine, and the berries are good for wine & jelly.
At our last stop on the walk, we gathered up some black walnuts from the driveway that were ready for cracking. We ended the walk with a lesson in cracking walnuts and how to find the possum in the nut. We ground some dried spice berry to add to our final meal together featuring chayote, yacon, and sunchokes, herbal tea and sweet potato coffee.
Many thanks to Doug and Yanna for welcoming us to their homestead for a year of foraging in their gardens and forests.
At our last stop on the walk, we gathered up some black walnuts from the driveway that were ready for cracking. We ended the walk with a lesson in cracking walnuts and how to find the possum in the nut. We ground some dried spice berry to add to our final meal together featuring chayote, yacon, and sunchokes, herbal tea and sweet potato coffee.
Many thanks to Doug and Yanna for welcoming us to their homestead for a year of foraging in their gardens and forests.
