Let The Foraging Commence

The “weeds” have finally emerged in abundance and it is time to start foraging and preserving what I find. Primarily I will be looking for garlic mustard so that I can make an abundance of pesto. I will likely be using hemp seeds to make the pesto, instead of sunflower seeds since I don’t have any at home at the moment.

I also want to find goutweed, as their leaves also make for an excellent pesto.

Some wild chamomile would also be nice, and a few young pine buds. I’ll keep you updated on what I find. Nature has a lot to offer. It is important to appreciate the wild greens, fruits and berries that are available to us. We are gatherers after all.

The free blessings in nature

Garlic mustard is amazing, in my opinion, since it can be used as a leafy green, as a replacement for chives, onions and garlic. The seeds can be used to make mustard or dried and used as seasoning. The plant itself is anti-septic, so it can be applied to wounds as a poultice or you can dehydrate the leaves and flowers and drink it as a tea. The younger leaves are better for eating as they are, whereas the larger leaves are excellent for making oven-baked veggie rolls. The leaves will then substitute cabbage leaves.

You can eat the roots, the stalk, the leaves, the seeds – all of it.

Today I harvested quite a bit of garlic mustard. I sautéed the leaves with homemade seasonings and then I added some crumbled tofu. I also added some dandelion leaves. It was absolutely delicious.

Then, I washed and cut the roots into smaller pieces and placed them in sterilised glass jar. The roots can be used as a replacement for horseradish and wasabi root. Then I did the same with the stalks. I poured over olive oil and gave the jar a gentle shake. I’ll keep adding roots and stalks until the oil has a beautiful scent and flavour similar to that of alliums and horseradish.

During fall I will be foraging for apples and mushrooms, but for now, flowers and leafy greens are my targets. However, I will also be harvesting sea/ocean water and seaweed during summer. I will use the seaweed for my homemade fertilisers and I will harvest my own sea salt from the water. I did that last year and that salt was definitely high quality. I only had one or two pet bottles last year, so this year I hope I can get a few jugs worth. That ought to leave me with a few hundred grams of salt.

Food security is bliss

I am so grateful that we have reached the time of year when we can go outside and forage for food or harvest food from the garden every single day. It is such a humble luxury. I will be on the lookout for other foods to forage and when the time comes, I will be preserving the dandelion roots in the garden. I use them for healing teas during the pollen season and during winter, for lung health.

I might be making a batch of dandelion kimchi later this week. It is so easy to make and so refreshing to eat. Cold noodles with dandelion kimchi is one of my favourite early summer dishes. It’s even better when you can harvest green onions at the same time and use them as garnish. The simple pleasures…

The container garden’s progress

Today I transferred a lot of plants to their forever containers in the garden. Squash, pumpkin, corn, beans, sunflowers and two kinds of radishes. The rest will be transferred on Wednesday. The sunflowers, chilli and peppers and the tomatoes can be companion planted both with each other and with other annuals that are already growing in the garden. The tomatillos and physalis will likely be planted in the greenhouse, though I will keep one of each variety companion planted in the garden.

It will get a little bit colder during the night, so I covered the containers where the four sisters are planted. They’re the biggest food producers and I cannot afford to lose them to the cold. I also covered the alliums since I want to prevent their soil from getting cold. There are so many garlic plants, onion plants and leeks that still needs to emerge from the soil, and the soil needs to stay warm for them to be able to do so.

The pantry

The taco paste is now being dehydrated. Over the next few days, it will be ground into a fine powder and stored in glass jars. I should be able to get many years worth of taco powder from the three containers. Hopefully enough to fill a 3.5 litre glass jar.

I will be dehydrating garlic mustard flowers and leaves for tea. I might dehydrate the seeds as well and use them to make mustard, or to season my pickles with. I am also considering making some dandelion syrup, also referred to as vegan honey.

I will be filling a few more jars of cucumber pickles this week. They keep for a long time, and cucumber prices may very well go up again soon. It is best to have a little more than you need in your pantry, after all.

The cold storage is looking organised, though there’s still more food that I will need to finish before the harvest season kicks in. I would love to have a larger pantry in the future, preferably a walk-in pantry, but for now this is enough.

I will soon need to freeze bananas and banana bread too, so I need to make sure there’s enough space in the freezer for them.

One thing’s for certain though: my food security is high.

While others dream of walk-in closets and fast designer fashion, I dream of walk-in pantries and sturdy shelves.

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