Pretty psyched for garlic mustard and dandelion season here soon.
Paw-paw season is my favorite though because you need to plan around climbing trees and jumping around in rivers.
Got any great experiences you want to share?
I want to find a morel for the first time this year, so I’m pretty excited for that! We’ll see if I actually do or not.
I also want to try making some recipes with stinging nettle. Like make some nettle fettuccine or nettle soup. It’s a common plant that I’ve been successful at identifying in the past, but all I’ve done with it is make tea so far, so I want to take it to the next level.
Also excited for pawpaws. I tried one for the first time last year at the Ohio State Pawpaw fest, but it would be cool to find one growing in the wild.
The most disappointing thing is finding loads of pawpaw trees all over, but no fruit. They grow in clonal colonies, and can’t self polinate, so unless they are getting pollinators that have traveled from another grove, there’s no fruit. I’d say maybe 5% of the pawpaw trees by me grow fruit. Certain groves are better than others
Almost seems like you need to just selectively plant trees from separate groves next to that of others. At that point it moves from foraging into more of a horticultural territory though, haha!
