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balkanradfem · 3 years

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Spring foraging

I've been taking pictures of these little 'forest clovers' for years because I found them so charming and beautiful and whimsical, I never once thought to try to eat them. I started researching good foraging plants, and found out these are actually called Wood Sorrel and they taste like lemon! I was beyond thrilled, because at this point I knew every single place in the forest they were growing, due to obsessive picture taking. To go around the forest and get a citrusy taste in my mouth from magical little clovers? Perfection. I later found out they're not good to eat in large amounts, but I had already made an entire salad out of them and felt great afterwards.

Another really cool plant to forage: Garlic Mustard! I actually mistook this plant for another similar one that also tasted like mustard (it was also edible, so no harm done), it's important to look at the leaves. They're shaped like nettle leaves. This plant is very spicy and leaves taste amazing! I didn't yet find it in big amounts here, so I'm only admiring it for now. It's good for adding to a salad.

This one looks like a dandelion, but notice the rectangular zig-zaggy shape of the leaves? This is Aposeris, and the main difference from dandelion is that it tastes and smells much more tasty. I only located this in one single place in the forest, but it was easy to gather and eat big amounts of it! It tasted very mild and nice, makes excellent salads.

Last cool plant I wanna talk about here is Violet; most people knows you can eat violets and they're sweet like candy, but I recently found out that the leaves of the violet are actually much more valuable. Violet leaf tea is medicinal, and it helps problems with lungs and breathing! You don't need to have violets blooming in order to harvest the leaves – the leaves will be around for long after.

Also a cool tip – tea from violet flowers tastes like crap, but it's vibrant blue in color! If ever you wanted to impress some kids or do a party trick, violet-flower-tea will absolutely look like a magic potion or a cool coctail, it's mildly medicinal and safe to drink, but it will taste meh. I haven't tried it sweetened tho, if someone had, let me know!

#foraging #spring #foraged food #wood sorrel #garlic mustard #aposeris #violets #self sustainable #learning to forage #plant knowledge

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