Archive for 'pennycress'

Tale of a Golden Foraging Opportunity

Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 10:05 pm  
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golden colorado hillside 254x350 Tale of a Golden Foraging Opportunity

Forager on a Golden hillside. Photo by Gregg Davis.

On our way home from Denver last Friday, Gregg and I made a detour up Golden Gate Canyon Road to check out a 93-acre ranch that Marilyn, who I met when she commented on a post, invited us to forage. (Actually, truth be told, I invited myself and she was generous enough to accept.) The canyon is breathtaking and so was her land, 93 acres of very steep hillside accessed by a potentially gnarly dirt road and then slowly through the cattle gate to where her family’s oasis is nestled.

She gave us a quick tour of the property, pointing out all the wild edible plants (even though I though that was my job), and then directed us up the hill. “Make a good hike of it,” she said, sending us on our way. 

Well, a “good hike” it certainly was—straight up, up, up, between the rocks, through the scrub, baking in the hot sun—and this after just completing three hours of skate camp in Highlands Ranch, also in the hot sun. So, for the first half of the hike (read: the up part), I was sweating profusely and frustrated with myself for my lack of excitement about the adventure, as I’d looked forward to it the entire week prior. It was all I could do to collect a few edibles while Gregg took photos. “We’ll come back when we’re less tired,” I said, trying to justify my attitude.  

But then, near the top of the hill in a ditch right before the well, something wonderful happened that snapped me right out of it: Gregg stuck his hand right into a patch of stinging nettles!  Read the rest of this entry

Weird Clover Flower Soup

Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 6:03 pm  
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red clover field 350x277 Weird Clover Flower Soup

A field of red clovers next to the driveway, with small white clovers betwixt.

The come-down from my huge purslane processing of the other day has been harder than I imagined it would be, such that I have been remiss in processing the bag of plantain that Jim gifted me from Denver. I’ve been afraid to look but I fear it is decomposing in the refrigerator. I had some dandelion leaves in the fridge too—the ones that came attached to the roots I dug up for the purslane South Seas salad the other day. However, when I pulled them out yesterday to chop up and add to the salmon salad I was making, they were covered with disconcerting brown dots.

Compound these two unfortunate episodes with my less-than-successful experiences with red clover, and you get a somewhat disillusioned Wild Food Girl.

Here’s what happened with the clovers: We came home from our trip a week ago to find the side of the driveway, which last year was rife with pennycress, carpeted with beautiful red clovers in full bloom. Beneath those, a more subtle crop of small white clovers peeked out from behind the leaves of their larger cousins. Read the rest of this entry

Tiny Cornucopia of Colorado Wild Edibles

Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 8:14 am  
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colorado cornucopia 350x262 Tiny Cornucopia of Colorado Wild Edibles

A cornucopia of Colorado wild edibles. From left to right, mustard, peppergrass, red clover, pennycress, white clover, wild strawberry peeking through, yarrow, and dandelions.

It’s a treat to be home to the quiet of the mountains again. I awoke today to the sweet, silent obscurity of the early morning dark followed by a sunrise of pale yellow behind bulbous, deep purple clouds left over from last night’s rainstorm. It must have rained hard while we were gone because the rains near washed out the driveway again. In exchange, however, they left us a cornucopia of lush wild edibles among all the other beautiful weeds, a warm welcome back to the house and to writing about wild edible plants after my long hiatus.  

Our wild discoveries started yesterday evening with tiny wild strawberries—not hanging from the strawberry plants in our yard (which in two years have yet to fruit), but from plants on the dirt roadside lining a short stroll around the neighborhood that we enjoyed in the dimming light in a misty rain under the shelter of Gregg’s Pop-pop’s red two-person umbrella. We picked 18 strawberries the size of my pinky nail (and I bite my nails) while ruminating on the decimation of the bird feeders during our absence by what we can only imagine is an errant bear in the neighborhood.  Read the rest of this entry