When planning to increase self-sufficiency and eating healthier foods, becoming a forager is inevitable. All you need is the capability to identify, gather and prepare plants worth propelling accomplishment of your goals and objectives. However, getting started can be challenging, but with more effort and gaining new skills over time will ease foraging in entirety. To begin your journey and how to become a forager within not time, here are three steps to help you out.
Familiarizing with the current region
Foraging inalienably requires going out. Familiarizing with your regions will define your foraging journey success. The more you are acquainted with your area, the more finding food with ease. For example, when living in humid and dry areas, consider looking for edible vegetation near water sources. Plants grow where conditions are favourable to flourish. When you know when to look for edible vegetation, finding food becomes pretty easy.
Use field guides to acquire foraging know-how.
Read books to enrich yourself on the edible plants’ varieties. Reading an edible plant field guide, finding a mentor is considered a self-sufficiency class in the foraging realm. Information from the books will boost your confidence to go out on your own. However, the books can be expensive; they are worth as they define your foraging success. Consider visiting local libraries or websites as an alternative for accessing cheap reading materials. Good field books have appropriate content required such as hundreds of drawings, edible plants pictures, plants characteristics, habitat descriptions, preparation instructions and in-season plants besides untouchable poisonous plants.
Be cautious, daring and practice.
Be sceptical and question everything, especially when you are unsure of a new plant you come across, and you are uncertain if it is edible or not. It is traumatic to consume potentially fatal plants. Questioning and researching will enrich your plant knowledge, thus become fun and an everyday hobby. Foraging gives the opportunity and solitude to interact with nature and improves the connectedness with the natural world.
Like any other acquired skill, practice makes perfect. Always start small and do not feel despised or neglected. Look or recognizable greens within your farms such as dandelions, lungwort and primroses. Remember to carry the field guide when beginning to refer when unsure. With time, the capability of recognizing plant traits will develop.
Still, wondering how to become a forager? This article tips will help grow a successful forager.
