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Wild Food!

© Bob Ewing

How well do you know the plants that grow in your community? I am not talking about what people grow in their gardens, or any public gardens. I'm talking about what grows in the cracks of sidewalks, along side building, the edges of parking lots and all those other spaces where Nature struggles to return. Some time back I wrote a review of the Neighborhood Forager. I suggest, as Spring advances, you read that article and give some thought to getting a copy of the book.

There are a few sensible precautions that you need to take before picking your supper from the urban buffet. The first and most important is identification. Get a good guide and be sure what you are picking. A second caution is making sure the plants you are selecting for dinner have not been sprayed. Regular observation of the spot you plant to harvest will help. There are many plants that we normally call weeds that are edible. You may find the taste strong at first, especially if you don't grow your own food, or buy organic.

Once you begin to regularly add wild grown food to your diet you will appreciate what fresh really means. Your urban harvesting excursions can be incorporated into your regular community walks, thereby, accomplishing several things, at the same time. You are getting to know your neighbourhood; meeting your neighbours; getting some exercise and menu planning all in one simple trip.

As you stop to gather your meal, people will come up to you and ask what you are doing. What an ideal opportunity to meet someone new and do a little casual education. My sense of the situation is that many people have no idea what is growing in their communities. Any plant that is confined in an orderly bed is a weed. Once a plant is labelled a weed then it becomes the enemy. Eradication and destruction are the only fates it deserves.

Now, of course, not everything is edible and that is why plant identification is vital. But just because you can eat a plant does not mean that it doesn't serve some other purpose, even if that purpose if simply to be. I admire Nature's tenacity, it's sheer determination to survive and thrive. If nothing else walking around town and looking at what is growing between the cracks can remind us that there are forces at work which are much greater than us. It also reminds us that we in our own way are a humble part of a wondrous whole that is Nature.