Responsible spring foraging

MOLLY MARQUAND
Posted 8/21/12

This year spring is early, and so are all the hopeful things that come with it: the ruffled blooms of red maple, the merry buzzing of bees and the courtship calls of woodcock, peeper and fox. Also …

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Responsible spring foraging

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This year spring is early, and so are all the hopeful things that come with it: the ruffled blooms of red maple, the merry buzzing of bees and the courtship calls of woodcock, peeper and fox. Also coming soon to the Delaware Valley’s forest floor are the wild edible delights everyone from gourmet chefs to home cooking enthusiasts go crazy for each spring. Ramps, fiddleheads and morels—to name just a handful of favorites—are anticipated a full two weeks early this year.

Before you grab your basket and head out to the woods, consider this: it takes almost seven years for a ramp to grow from miniscule seed to luscious, piquante, pickable bulb. In states like Tennessee, where ramps have been picked for a lot longer than they have been here, the plant is now considered “a species of special concern.” Once covering the damp soils of thousands upon thousands of acres of Appalachian woods, the Tennessee ramp has gradually dwindled due to picking pressure, forcing the state to crack down on non-permitted foragers and ban the pastime altogether in some particularly sensitive areas.

Here in New York, the rules for wild foraging are similar: pickers wanting to harvest on public land must go through the proper channels with the Department of Environmental Conservation, who issue quotas and record yearly yields. However, most ramps are picked on private lands, where there are no protections for plants—rare, threatened, endangered, or otherwise. Unfortunately, the ramp is so abundant in the Catskills that many purveyors presume current plentiful supplies mean no amount of picking can harm the population. But a study conducted in Great Smokey National Park discovered that the only way not to damage a population of these super-sensitive delicacies is to harvest less than 10% of the population every 10 years. Talk about slow food.

So how do we have our cake and eat it too? Just as with many other environmental debacles, the real answer is this: we can’t. But we can have a spoonful or two, enjoy ramps in moderation and keep them around for generations to come. A good way to start is to ask ramp vendors where they do their harvesting. If it’s on private land, ask if they have a replanting plan. Ramp seeds germinate slowly, but have a high success rate and are relatively easy to re-seed. Ask what percentage of their patch is harvested (the answer you’re looking for: less than 10% is harvested, and all harvests are rotated so the same patch is never hit several years in a row). These questions may seem harsh, but education is the key to conservation. If you dig your own, consider these guidelines while out in the woods and work on building a shaded raised bed in your own garden to cultivate a patch of the plants; ramps are very willing garden growers. Another alternative? Eschew the bulbs and go for handfuls of the succulent, spicy, easily replaceable leaves instead.

These same principals apply to all and any other foragable fodder, with the exception of mushrooms. Mushrooms are the edible fruit of an expansive, most unreachable, subterranean fungus. Still, let’s not get greedy. Mushrooms are reproductive vessels and important food for wildlife, so it’s always wise—and kind—to leave some behind. The crunchy fiddleheads of ostrich ferns also contain nascent spores, known as sori, and if all are picked the plant doesn’t stand a chance at reproduction.

One plant the great outdoors will thank you for picking again and again is Japanese knotweed. A relative of rhubarb, the invasive species’ young stems make an excellent substitute in a pie, tossed with strawberries (use wild ones, if you like)! The trick to harvesting knotweed is to start early, when the plant’s first shoots become visible above the ground. At this stage they’re russet to purple in color and are incredibly tender. Cut and come again, and again, and again. Stacking your refrigerator high with the nutritious stalks, you’ll also be depleting the plant’s rootstock and ensuring it doesn’t outcompete other native plants that season.

A word of caution: knotweed often grows along roads, which means it could have been treated with herbicide. Skip those populations and look for it along stream sides where chemical application is far less likely.

Bon appetit!

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