Wild Edibles: Wild Strawberry

In the area of the Kawarthas where I usually hike, Wild Strawberries are a very rare delicacy.  I am lucky to find 1 every year!  Well, this past weekend, amongst all of the other abundant edibles, I was lucky enough to find a single Wild Strawberry bearing fruit.

Woodland Strawberry

This plant, a member of the Rose family, tends to grow to 3-5 inches.  Its 3 leaves are coarsely toothed with hairy stalks.  There are two varieties, the Common Strawberry
and the Woodland Strawberry, Fragaria virginiana and Fragaria vesca respectively.  If you care to distinguish them, you can do so by their fruit and the tooth at the end of the leaves.

Common Strawberry

The Common Strawberry has seeds that rest in little pits on the surface, and the tooth at the end of their leaves is shorter than those on either side.  The Woodland Strawberry,
by contrast, has seeds that sit slightly raised on the fruit’s surface, and the tooth at the end of their leaves are slightly longer than the teeth on either side.

The fruit are tiny compared to domestic Strawberries, but they taste much better!  Adding to its taste, at least for me, is the fact that I’ve had to work to find one, and since I find them so seldomly where I hike and camp, I eat it mindfully, savouring it for as long as its flavour will last.

Here are two great resources to bring on your hikes to help you with plant identification:
•    Forest Plants of Central Ontario; Lone Pine Publishing
•    Peterson Field Guides – Edible Wild Plants, Eastern/Central North America

As with any wild plant:
•    harvest/consume only those that you can identify positively
•    when in doubt ask an expert in the area
•    Learn to distinguish from any similar poisonous plant (if applicable)
•    Sample sparingly at first to gauge individual sensitivities/allergies
•    Understand which parts of which plants may be consumed as many edible plants have toxic parts/structures
•    Harvest only when/where abundant
•    Do not harvest plants that are endangered or in need of protection

Happy Trails!

Wild Edibles: Serviceberry

Smooth Serviceberry – Amelanchier laevis??

One of the current items in nature’s cupboard is the Serviceberry, also known as Juneberry, since they ripen in June.  There are several wild varieties (Amelanchier spp.), but in less you are looking to plant some in your garden, the differences seem irrelevant as all are edible.  Like the strawberry and dwarf raspberries, that I was also picking this past weekend, these are members of the Rose family (and the fruit is referred to as a pome if anyone asks).

This perennial shrub seldom seems to exceed 1m in this area

According to my Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, this perrenial shrub can grow up to 10m tall.  Where I hike I’ve never seen it grow higher than 1m (3 feet) and I tend to find it along open rocky sites, growing in amongst blueberries and one of my other favorites, Sweetfern.

This is an unappreciated fruit, to say the least.  The ripe fruit are round, blue, dark purple or almost black when ripe and are slightly juicier, sweeter and larger than wild blueberries, at about 8-12mm.

Amelanchier canadensis?

Here are two great resources to bring on your hikes to help you with plant identification:
•    Forest Plants of Central Ontario; Lone Pine Publishing
•    Peterson Field Guides – Edible Wild Plants, Eastern/Central North America

As with any wild plant:
•    harvest/consume only those that you can identify positively
•    when in doubt ask an expert in the area
•    Learn to distinguish from any similar poisonous plant (if applicable)
•    Sample sparingly at first to gauge individual sensitivities/allergies
•    Understand which parts of which plants may be consumed as many edible plants have toxic parts/structures
•    Harvest only when/where abundant
•    Do not harvest plants that are endangered or in need of protection

Happy Trails!

Wild Edibles: Dwarf Raspberry

The prickly, shoulder high Wild Red Raspberry bush that you may be familiar with won’t bear fruit in our cottage country for 4-6 more weeks, but the dwarf raspberry is ready for the picking, if you know where to look and what to look for.

“Leaves of three – let it be”?  That’s a good rule to keep your kids away from poison ivy, but there are so many plants with 3 leaves out there that it is worth getting to know a few of them.  The Dwarf Raspberry, Rubus pubescens, is one such example.  This low, trailing member of the Rose family tends to grow to about 3-5 inches in height and with its 3 sharply toothed leaves it is easily mistaken for a wild Strawberry.  I tend to find them in shaded woods in moist soils.  Their tiny fruit is smaller than the Wild Red Raspberry and more difficult to harvest, as it tends to cling to the stem more fiercely, and of course, since the plant is so small, there tends to be only 1 berry per plant.  They are ripening right now, so don’t delay!

Here are two great resources to bring on your hikes to help you with plant identification:
•    Forest Plants of Central Ontario; Lone Pine Publishing
•    Peterson Field Guides – Edible Wild Plants, Eastern/Central North America

As with any wild plant:
•    harvest/consume only those that you can identify positively
•    when in doubt ask an expert in the area
•    Learn to distinguish from any similar poisonous plant (if applicable)
•    Sample sparingly at first to gauge individual sensitivities/allergies
•    Understand which parts of which plants may be consumed as many edible plants have toxic parts/structures
•    Harvest only when/where abundant
•    Do not harvest plants that are endangered or in need of protection

Happy Trails!

Wild Edibles: Blueberries

We went for a hike this past weekend on Crown Land just south of the Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park.  Blueberries tend to be in season around Canada Day, but with some seasonal variation you just never know if you might be too early or too late to take advantage.  30 minutes into our hike, as the trail lead us out of the moist and shaded woods and up onto some exposed rock we found some blueberry plants at last.  Most of the berries were just tiny green nubs though.  We marched on.  We were about to sit down for lunch when we found a patch of blueberries that has been receiving a lot of sun.  We were in luck at last!  We collected berries in a coffee mug and after a few minutes we had all that we needed and settled down for lunch, saving the berries for dessert.

Cup full of blueberries for dessert

In our area blueberries tend to ripen in late June to mid July.  They can be found in dry, acidic soils and need some direct sunlight.  Find them near pine stands, edge of thickets, and in sandy soil.  Get to know this low deciduous shrub from the Heath family.  There are a couple of varieties to be found and they are all edible.  Serviceberries tend to grow right along side the blueberries, ripening at around the same time, so get to know them as well and mix them all together.  Sweet-fern tends to grow in amongst the blueberries also, making the blueberry patch your one stop shop.

I’ve posted about Sweet-fern before, but that was in the fall when the leaves are already dry.  This time of year you can throw the leaves fresh into your pot or you can dry them quickly over a fire before steeping:

Step 1: Harvest Sweet-fern leaves

Step 2: Dry leaves over coals or low fire

Step 3: Steep leaves for several minutes (preferably covered)

Here are two great resources to bring on your hikes to help you with plant identification:
•    Forest Plants of Central Ontario; Lone Pine Publishing
•    Peterson Field Guides – Edible Wild Plants, Eastern/Central North America

As with any wild plant:
•    harvest/consume only those that you can identify positively
•    when in doubt ask an expert in the area
•    Learn to distinguish from any similar poisonous plant (if applicable)
•    Sample sparingly at first to gauge individual sensitivities/allergies
•    Understand which parts of which plants may be consumed as many edible plants have toxic parts/structures
•    Harvest only when/where abundant
•    Do not harvest plants that are endangered or in need of protection

Happy Trails!