There are resources right here in the Triad, like Nathan
Wheeler, a serious hobbyist forager in the Pinnacle/Pilot Moun- tain area. Nathan was a birder in college at UNC-Chapel Hill, and has been foraging for about 8 years, starting out with trees, herbs, then weeds and moving into herbal medicine training. He says there are about 18-20 plants/mushrooms he works with regularly in our area including nuts, berries, fruits, roots, mush- rooms and lichens. Nathan encourages a new forager to start in their own backyard, edges of fields and of edges of streams while being aware of possible pesticide usage. He says he loves to find morels and chanterelles and he finds elderberry to be an incred- ible immune booster and arthritis medicine. As to why should one start foraging? Nathan states that it gives us a connection to the outdoors, it brings us closer to what actually sustains us, reminds us that we are only here by the larger system that we sometimes seem bent on destroying, and that if we go out our- selves to forage our food, it will be harder for us to destroy habitat and vegetation.
Stesha Parrish Warren of Eliana’s Garden in Stoneville states
that foraging allows us to take our health into our own hands and it refutes the idea that weeds are bad, it helps us look at our yards differently. Foraging is a way to take control of where our food comes from and allows us to work with nature, not against nature. She says we can choose to plant things that attract but- terflies, birds and bees. She encourages those interested in it to play detective in their own yard, you can start right out your back
door. It gives people a sense of empowerment and helps us ap- preciate our spaces. She also says we are fortunate in that Rock- ingham County has some very specific plants such as bloodroot and cohosh (as well as others we won’t name) that are normally only found in the far western region of NC. She mentions a fun game that the entire family can play to learn about wild foraging called Wildcraft.
So, to recap Samuel Thayer in his book Nature’s Garden,
“Your wild paradise is not in some far off land, it is in your own neighborhood. All you need is to discover it, see it, smell it, feel it, unveil its secrets, make it your own. Some people may think it’s silly to go out for a walk and come home with a lush heap of gourmet vegetables than drive to a grocery store to buy weeks old with hard earned cash, inferior vegetables with half the nu- tritional value doused with deadly chemicals.”
JoAndra (Jo) Proia is a featured Natural Triad outdoor writer, owns Outdoor Women by Jo Proia, LLC and is the author of Piedmont Lakes; A Practical Guide for Boating in the NC Piedmont. Follow her on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/outdoorwomenbyjp or visit the website:
www.outdoorwomenbyjp.com
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