how about a thread on what edibles you found and ate this year. We munched on morels, chanterelles, aspen bolete, butter bolete, chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, hedge hogs, and bears tooth.
Hen of the woods,chicken of the woods, bears tooth, old man of the woods, black trumpets, puffball & lobster mushroom. I think the black trumpets are my new favorite, followed by bears tooth & hens.
Black trumpets-great, we haven't found any. I'm with you on the hens and bears head tooth. Those are our new favorites. We had both of those tonight with supper. Doesn't get any better.
I was a total failure this year. I let the mosquitoes keep me away. When the weather turned I didn't prioritize it enough to get out. I did get some morels, leeks, and basswood leaves this spring though. Wanted to try a puff and a chicken, but never got out there.
I just don't eat many mushrooms that I find, but I'll try to list the edibles that I have found. Morels, chants, chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, lobster, black trumpet, hedge hogs.
I was a total failure this year. I let the mosquitoes keep me away. When the weather turned I didn't prioritize it enough to get out. I did get some morels, leeks, and basswood leaves this spring though. Wanted to try a puff and a chicken, but never got out there.
DSD, we found some really big bitter boletes the other day but don't need to try them to prove that they're bitter. I think the other bootees we ate were pretty tasteless, not much flavor.
SD51555, I'd like to hear about the basswood leaves as well.
I came across a guy on youtube with a channel or theme called "Eat The Weeds." He had a video on basswood. My dad's place is overrun with basswood, so naturally I watched it. Basswood leaves can be eaten as soon as they start growing up until they are about 2-3 inches in diameter. So it only lasts for a little while in the spring. More so, you can tell when they are ripe for eating because they will be almost translucent and a noticeably different kind of green. I have to say, they are very tasty, that fresh from the earth rich nutrient dense taste. I also pulled a better explanation out of an article I found this morning. After the fact, it made sense they'd be good eating. The deer around home will feed heavily on basswood during this period in the spring.
Basswood Salad
Basswood leaves only make a good salad green in spring and very early summer, when they are young and tender. They are best just after the buds open, when the flavor is notably sweet. For several weeks into the growing season, the youngest tender leaves at the tips of the new growth are suitable for eating. You’ll know they are too old when they are too tough for your liking, and you’ll quickly develop an eye for the tenderest leaves. Besides being smaller, they are lighter in color and shinier than mature foliage.
I probably eat more basswood greens than any other wild salad. I like to grab a handful and nibble them as I hike through the woods or down the road. I also often pick a bagful of leaves and bring them home so I can sit down to a proper bowl of salad, embellished with other greens in season and complete with dressing. Less often, I use basswood greens on sandwiches. And occasionally I use them in cooked dishes, but they shrink so much and their flavor is lost this way, so I prefer using them raw as one would use lettuce.
Unless you can jump many times your own height, you’ll want to look for basswood trees growing in the open, at the edge of the woods, along roads and fencelines, or wherever else the trees tend to have low branches. It is nearly impossible to kill a basswood by picking its leaves for salad, unless you’re harvesting from a small shoot or sapling. In this case it is probably best to leave the terminal leaves on each branch so that it can continue to grow.
If you want your own unlimited salad bar next spring, just find some basswood trees on the edge of a clearing and cut a bunch down this winter. The deer will appreciate the tree tops, and the stumps will put out plenty of new salad for you and the deer come spring. If you haven't seen it done before, basswood can darn near turn into a bush when it's cut, because one stump will throw off multiple shoots. Then repeat after 2 years. The new shoots will then be too tall for anything to reach them and you'll have to start over. It's also a fast decomposing wood, so you don't have to worry about a ton of residual wood laying around for more than 2-3 years.