Berry Picking Time in Tennessee!

This week begins blackberry picking season. It is one of my favorite foraging times of year. Blackberries are prolific in my area. They are actually, in my opinion, the kick-off of fruit season.  Mulberries, which were the first to ripen, were really just a teaser. Sometimes I feel like the friend of Forrest Gump...blackberry jelly, blackberry applesauce, blackberry pie filling, blackberry lime syrup, blackberry ketchup, blackberry barbecue sauce.... What's really funny is that I can go into Publix and buy 6 oz of blackberries for $4 or I can go into the field next door and pick a gallon for free!

Right now my plan is for blackberry jelly. It is fortunate that crab apples are at the right stage for jelly making when blackberries are ripe! Young green crab apples are best because they have the most pectin in them.  They are tart so don't think you will love the apples raw, but they make fantastic jelly.

If you haven't scouted your nearest blackberry patch, now is the time.  Look for them at edges of fields and islands of vegetation in fields. Often you will find wild grapes growing nearby as well.  Note the location because you can go back at the end of summer to collect them!  Look for crab apples around business buildings, shopping areas, and schools (I have found them in all three locally). They are often planted because of their attractive flowers in the spring.

Starting at noon and going clockwise: Dock seeds for grinding into flour, milkweed flower buds for soup, a gallon of blackberries, perilla to dry for seasoning, three gallons of crab apples and center is wood sorrel for soup seasoning.

Canning Pickled Milkweed Bud Capers

I tried unopened milkweed flower buds several years ago and since then they have been one of my favorite wild edibles.  They grow abundantly here (as in fields of them) so I am not concerned with depleting the food source for butterflies.  I usually only take one pom pom of buds from each plant leaving the rest.  They taste like mild asparagus.  Pickling them produces a strong similarity to capers. 

Pickled Milkweed Capers

Ingredients:

1 loosely filled gallon baggie of milkweed bud pom poms (do not remove individual buds yet)
9 cups of water (using 3 cups per day)
12 tablespoons kosher salt (use 4 per day)
2 1/2 cups white wine vinegar

Buds after boiling.

bay leaves (1 per jar)
fresh thyme (1 per jar)
5 teaspoons of sugar

Directions:

Day One:

Bring a pot of water to boil.  Wash milkweed buds and boil for 2 minutes (no longer).  Drain and spray cool water on the buds. Carefully trim individual buds from the pom pom into a bowl with clean scissors.

Mix three cups of water with 4 tablespoons of salt.  Pour over buds.  This should just cover buds.  Place paper towel over and allow to sit until the next day.

Day Two:

Drain.  Mix three cups of water with 4 tablespoons of salt.  Pour over buds.  This should just cover buds.  Place paper towel over and allow to sit until the next day.

Day Three:

Drain.  Mix three cups of water with 4 tablespoons of salt.  Pour over buds.  This should just cover buds.  Place paper towel over and allow to sit until the next day.

Day Four:

Drain and rinse buds.   Prepare half pint canning jars and lids.  I finished with five half pint jars filled.  Per jar, you will need 1/2 cup of vinegar, one each bay leaf, one stick of fresh thyme and one teaspoon of sugar.  Adjust accordingly.


Bring vinegar, bay leaves, thyme and sugar to boil.  In each jar add a bay leaf and stick of thyme.  Add buds.  Pour vinegar over buds to 1/2 inch head space.

Waterbath for 10 minutes.

May Foraging Finds!

May is a great month for foraging in Middle Tennessee!  Everything has come to life.  There are lots of flowers and the beginning of many berries and fruits.  Mulberries are nearly ready, crab apples are now small on the trees, and wild grapes have formed their shape.  It's a perfect time to pick out where your wild blackberries are growing because there are currently white blooms on the bushes.

Ground Ivy is growing profusely! Strong herb in the mint family.

Edible Lawn Daisy!

White Clover Flower, great for salads or dried for tea or making flour.

Pineapple Weed, smells like pineapple and makes a wonderful tea or cheesecake!

Curly Dock, leaves are a great potherb, seeds will eventually turn red and can be used for flour.

Red Clover, tastier than white clover but more elusive!

Tulip Poplar tree, you can drink the sweet nectar in the tulip "cups".

Honeysuckle is in full bloom.  You can make Honeysuckle Jelly and Syrup with the flower.

Milkweed.  It has multiple edible parts but I prefer the unopened flower buds which should show up anytime.  They taste like asparagus and you can dehydrate them! Make sure the back of the leaves are fuzzy and the stem is hollow to be sure you have the right plant.

Thistle.  Use gloves.  The best part is the center of the leaves after the prickly parts are cut away.  Very tasty but a real pain to get!

Plantain, popping up everywhere!

My favorite find this month!  Lamb's Quarters, Chenopodium album (pronounced with a hard k sound as in key-no-po-dee-um), a wonderful wild edible often described as better than spinach!  I had given up hope finding it in Middle Tennessee and here it is in the middle of a soccer field. Go figure.

Yellow Water Iris, aka Flag Iris, Iris pseudacorus, while not edible does have an important function.  It cleans the water (though this plant is considered a noxious foreign interloper).  See the watercress in the picture?  Upper left. Watercress is starting to bloom with little white flowers.  You can still pick it, but it has lost that traditional "watercress" look.

Milkweed, My New Favorite Vegetable!

Milkweed in bloom, unopened buds on top.

About a month ago I was exploring one of our local parks when I came across a beautiful and unusual plant.  I knew that it was either going to be something great or super poisonous because it was unlike any other plants around it.  It turned out to be something great!

While milkweed is no longer a commonly eaten plant, it was once frequently consumed by Native Americans and early colonists.  There are numerous toxic look-a-likes, namely dogbane and butterfly weed, so if you are interested in harvesting the plant, be sure and study the plant and its look-a-likes.  Just for information, dogbane's stalks are solid while milkweed's stalks are hollow, and milkweed has a white sap while butterfly weed's sap is clear.  In my opinion, it is difficult to miss common milkweed as it is so unique, especially when the flowers are in bloom. 

Milkweed buds, or the unopened flowers, are the part of choice on this plant.  The flowers are shaped like a pom-pom and are quite beautiful when they open.  Each bud in the pom-pom is slightly smaller than a pea.  It has been recommended online that you should boil milkweed in several changes of water to remove the bitterness.  I can only assume that those writers had never eaten milkweed, a conclusion shared by numerous milkweed eaters.  These are delicate and while I did boil mine for several minutes, to do it several times would result in mush.  I also did not detect any bitterness after the initial boil.  It tasted like a very mild asparagus, which I would be quite willing to eat over and over.  It is probably one of the easiest vegetables to cook.  My husband enjoyed it as well.  The kids, well, unless it is a green bean, will not even attempt it, no offense to milkweed.

Garlic Butter Sauteed Milkweed

Ingredients:

2 cups of milkweed buds (about a lunch size paperbag of collected milkweed buds)
3 garlic cloves crushed
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste

Directions:

Bring saucepan of water to boil.  Cut buds from milkweed pom-pom.  Leave the stems as they are soft and tasteless.

Drop buds in boiling water for two minutes.  Drain.

In frying pan, cook butter and crushed garlic for several minutes.  Add milkweed buds and fry for three to five minutes.  Add soy sauce and salt to taste. 

Serve alone or over rice.

Check out these other great milkweed recipes:

Milkweed Bud Capers
Milkweed Bud Cheddar Soup
Cream of Milkweed Flowerbud Soup

As with any wild plant, do your research and only try a little in the beginning to see if it is agreeable to you.

Foraging Around Franklin, Tennessee!

Blackberries, Crab Apples & Milkweed Buds

It's blackberry season around here!  Today I found about a third of the blackberries on the shrub ready for picking (Winstead Park in Franklin, TN).  It's also a great time to start picking crab apples for making jelly (PGS in Franklin, TN).  They are not completely ripe yet which is what you want to get the most pectin.  I also found some milkweed buds (Winstead Park in Franklin, TN) which is great for soups and stir fry. 

Happy hunting!