A Good Year for Wild Edibles?

We managed another quick trip into the woods to hunt for mushrooms, one that proved much more fruitful then our last. In a little over an hour we were able to come up with just over 30 fine morels before being chased away by a windy rainstorm. One never wants to be caught in the mountains of northern Idaho in a spring windstorm, especially when not prepared for such an event. Normally, at the very least, we bring our smallest chainsaw with to cut away any downed trees that might fall across the road...we neglected to do so on this trip and were forced to beat a hasty retreat.


This Calypso orchid, also known as the "fairy slipper," was named after the sea nymph Calypso. According to Greek mythology this daughter of Atlas lived a solitary life on the island of Ogygia in the Ionian Sea and made life very interesting for certain sailors who washed up on her shores.

This orchid with it's vanilla scent and intricate design is one of my favorite flowers and a tell-tale sign that morels are in the area. It apparently has developed a sort of relationship with various fungi and shares the nutrients provided to both from the trees in old growth forests. Only having one leaf it cannot readily photosynthesize by itself and uses certain fungi as a host.


Some of the mushrooms we came across were not of the edible sort, like this deadly Gyromitra esculenta, Conifer False Morel also called "Beefsteak" or "Brain Morel". This little guy contains compounds similar to those used to manufacture rocket fuel...not good to eat, although some people do as the chemical concentrations differ depending upon where it is located...I'll pass.

And these Snow Bank Morels? Apparently delicious. Or are they Gabled False Morels (poisonous), they look so similar one has to examine the spores to tell the difference...these are not for me either.

I'm not sure what this one is.

We dried a few of the mushrooms to be savored at a later date and the rest were fried with onions, garlic, and potatoes...a most delicious topping for an evening salad. I hope our good luck with morels today is a sign of things to come as we spend the warm months gathering various wild edibles.

No Room for Me

A large percentage of our garden area has been planted but we still have a long way to go. Our little greenhouse is full up, no room for me not even an inch...I had to put everything inside tonight as we are due for some cold frosty weather.

Peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, flowers, and various tender herbs make up the majority of the greenhouse contents and will have to wait until the first part of June to be planted. In the main garden all of my hardy plants are in the ground and doing well.

Blue podded peas

kohlrabi

fava beans

radishes

shallots and set onions

garlic, celery, and celeriac

more peas and carrots

and a little purple potato that had to be covered up for fear of frost are a few of the plants that are growing outside.

Hardy herbs like valerian

echinachea

lemon balm

and soapwort are all looking good.

The salad garden is still under construction, but starting to take shape and our salad bowl is overflowing.

We are busy, busy, busy... but having a most excellent time of it.

The First Morel

We went deep into the forest. Searching, hunting for a fascinating little treasure that is found for only a brief period of time in the mountains of Northern Idaho early each spring. No time to look at flowers on this trip, we were on a distinct mission.

Past beaver dams.

And past the trees they had chiseled away.

Stopping only to reflect upon the beauty that engulfed us on every front, we diligently trudged onward.

Then, at the end of a long waterway, there it was...the first morel. A superb example of Morchella elata, the black morel. Proudly standing alone, its siblings still undercover, we took only a picture and that was enough.

Our Forest Garden

As anxious as an expectant father I watch for my new fruit and nut tree seedlings to emerge in the spring as the soil warms. Years ago I started experimenting with the growing of fruit and most recently nut trees from seed. We are slowly working towards creating a small food forest of our own and have been diligent in saving seeds from the fruit and nuts of old orchards and forests that we come across as we search our favorite haunts for wild edibles.

Chestnut just emerging

One year old chestnut

Many of the apples trees we have started are ones able to grow high into the forest canopy. We have gathered seeds from wild black cherry trees that tower 50 to 60 feet above the woodland floor. Shade loving plants such as currants and gooseberries seem to do well once established. Certain raspberries, strawberries, service, and elderberries have also been encouraged to grow amongst many other adaptive plants. Our acreage consists of many tall trees and the aforementioned attributes are important in such a forest garden. This is a goal that is still very much in its infancy and will be many, many years in the making but one of which the basis has already been established and is slowly becoming more than an idea but an actual reality.

Black raspberry

Strawberry

Black elderberry

Native elderberry

This last fall I seeded directly into the ground various apple, pear, cherry, apricot, plum, chestnut, and walnut seeds and some of them are just beginning to develop into little seedlings. We do this in the fall because the seeds need to go through a 3-4 month stratification period at 35-40°. This can also be done in the fridge as I did with some of my sea kale and soapwort seeds. My wife would be most annoyed if I filled up the fridge with tree seeds as well though, it's bad enough that the living room is full of vegetable seedlings...and then there's last year's squash but I won't talk about that right now.

Sea kale and soapwort in the fridge

Sea kale 7 weeks later

Baby apricot

Parent apricot started to bloom yesterday

The apples, and pears, are always a mystery because they will be a cross of what ever trees were growing in the area, that's OK. I am not going so much for flavor in this project as adaptability...I need tall trees that can be grown out in the woods and can compete with the coniferous trees for light. It also helps that they are trees from the immediate area and should do well in our climate. The rest of these seedlings, with any luck, should come true to to form as I believe they are all standard trees that self pollinate.

Our tall coniferous trees

We also have a wide variety, around 32 I think, of nursery bought dwarf and semi dwarf fruit trees anywhere from 3-10 years of age, most in the 4-5 year range and just beginning to bear fruit for us in our mini orchard. The most important thing to know about planting fruit trees is that they take time, time slips by quickly though. I am so glad that we stopped putting off the little orchard idea and finally got busy and started planting trees a few years back. We added around 12 just last year and have two more pears sitting in pots in the greenhouse waiting to be planted this spring. We found a couple sad little Asian pears at a $ store and decided to take a chance on them.

The area we planted a few of our younger semi dwarf trees in deer cages

Sad little Asian pears

We traded eggs and a bit of cash for many pounds of English walnuts this past fall and I planted around fifty of them, I had to take a peek and see what was happening....the expectant father thing. We started a couple black walnut trees a few years back and they will be used to pollinate the English ones in good time.

English walnut starting to root

Boy and three year old black walnut

Future home of walnut trees

The apples come from the seed of over 20 standard trees found all over our area and were the first to germinate this spring.

Apple emerging

Three days later

Three year old apple from seed


A couple of our black cherry trees, direct from seed 4 years ago, are close to 11' tall already, and even provided us with a handful of cherries last year.

Black cherry

Some of our unknown but very hardy pear trees, perhaps some type of Bosc, are very close to bearing fruit and I have high hopes they will this summer. One of our Italian plums, an old grafted one, has been through the worst of it with us. It was actually ripped out of the ground when a tree fell on it a few years ago, we hoisted it back up, replanted it and although it lost many of its limbs it has continued to produce. Not only that but it has given us numerous baby plum trees, not true to form, but ones that none-the-less put out a most delicious little green plum. They also grow very tall and seem to thrive wherever we plant them...even in the shade.

Green plum preparing to flower

It takes 2-4 years for a nursery bought fruit tree to produce and will take perhaps 6 or more for one propagated from seed...even longer for some nut trees. So there is no better time then the present to get started on the planting of fruit trees and berry bushes.

Don't be afraid to try something new! We have mulberry trees and honeyberry bushes growing and are now looking for a hardy peach and perhaps a quince to grow. Can I keep my two sad dwarf Asian pears alive in this climate?...I don't have a clue, but am darn sure going to try.

Honeyberry bush

I love this quote I first read on Chiot’s Run .

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit". - Rudyard Kipling