the new foraging season

It’s officially fall…

It is that time of year. Plants are starting to die out in my flower beds. I pulled out the calendula carcasses; the irises and sunflowers are long gone, the mint is disappearing and the potted fig trees are starting to go dormant.

This is a great time of year to be a forager. Spring is awesome for fresh greens, and there are still some greens to be had, but fall is time for stocking up on winter protein sources. The area around where I live is full of pecan, hickory and black walnut trees. The trick is to get to some of the nuts before the other creatures clean house.

The squirrels managed to completely remove every pecan from our backyard tree, picking and eating the nuts before they were even ready to drop. This isn’t bad news necessarily as the tree is pretty small compared to all the other neighborhood trees. In looking around at the giant trees, it looks like this will be a good year for pecans, which is great since there has been a drought of the nuts over the last three years. Last year there weren’t any at all.

I am pretty sure that I can pick up at least twenty five pounds of pecans this year. I have plenty of plans for them including trying to make some cooking oil and also lots of baking ideas. Supposedly it takes four pounds of nuts to make one pound of oil.

There are also signs that the hickory nuts are starting to drop right now. Last night I took a walk to the closest tree and saw plenty of the nuts smashed in the street. I will start checking the area every day from now on in hopes of netting a few pounds of the hickory meat. These nuts are great for baking, but it is too much of a pain in getting everything out of the shell to make good out-of-hand eating. A hammer and pliers are needed for hickory and black walnut whereas the thin walled pecan can be shelled pretty much intact.

Another thing to look for are ground nuts, also known as chufa or yellow nutgrass. These are not really nuts, but rather a grass-spreading tuber. These small tubers are used to make traditional horchata and can also be roasted or even eaten raw. There are plenty growing in my front yard. Most folks try to rip out nutgrass, but I have been encouraging their growth ever since Noel pointed out the abundance. The tubers will get bigger with some management, but right now they are pretty small.

If anyone is interested in foraging in the city, let me know. I am always looking to learn to identify new wild edibles in an urban environment.