Farmer and wild food harvester Tim Boucher eating wild raspberries on the edge of field of flowering potatoes.
When I started my small farm business this year, I couldn't wait for my garden to start producing. But here in Quebec, according to the old gardeners, our last frost can be as late as the first full moon in June. This means that a lot of cultivated plants in our region get a very late start. Not so, however, with the weeds. They seemed to have no problem flourishing early and in vast quantities—far vaster and more vigorous, for example, than my feeble spinach.
Historically, fresh wild spring greens of all sorts were a welcome relief from the stored foods people subsisted on through the winter months, providing much needed vitamins, minerals and restored vitality for the new season ahead. With the advent of always-available grocery store produce, people relied less on what nature offered in season and more on what was commercially available. And with a few notable exceptions (fiddleheads, ramps, nettles, certain wild mushrooms), foraged foods were relegated to people living in poverty or subsistence situations.
But many wild edible plants are not only higher in essential nutrients, but in taste too. Their flavour profiles tend to be more complex and interesting than their cultivated cousins, which are in actuality simply a narrowly-selected subset of the genetic diversity available in wild plant families. Though in North America wild plants have mostly fallen out of favour, in other cultures they are basic to peoples' diet. In Greece, for example, there are more than eighty different wild plants which make up horta and can be used either as part of a salad mix or as wilted greens.
Of course, I didn't know any of this at the beginning. I simply sat waiting for my spinach to do something. Meanwhile, my interior production of microgreens was providing me good early season contact with area chefs. It gave me a chance to find out more about the unique tastes chefs were bringing to their kitchens. One local restaurant proprietor, for example, is a transplant from France. He asked me to bring him dandelion, or in French pissenlit (literally, “piss the bed”—it's a diuretic). I did so tentatively, not knowing exactly when might be the right time to harvest the leaves of this ubiquitous weed. I tasted the leaves, and to me they just tasted hopelessly bitter. Near impossible to eat, in my opinion. So when I dropped off the week's microgreens, I simply offered a bag of dandelion leaves as a free add-on and asked him to tell me which ones he thought were good (he never did).
As the weeks progressed, I continued my taste-testing in the field and my online research into edible wild plants. My real break-through came with Chenopodium album: lamb's quarters or fat hen (matches the Quebec French name, poule grasse) or “wild spinach.” It's in the same family as quinoa. Here, at last, was a weed that wasn't just edible, but which actually tasted good and which, more importantly, was plentiful in my garden. Much more plentiful, I should say, than my still-tiny cultivated spinach.
Every time I made a delivery of microgreens or shallots — the first real gift from my small outdoor production — I brought with me in-season wild edible plants (“weeds”) as free samples. I was lucky enough to develop a good relationship with one adventurous local chef who already knew some of the plants and who was willing to experiment with new tastes and unconventional recipes. It became like a game, every week bringing in new discoveries, trying to stump him with things like burdock roots, seeds of curly dock or sweet clover.
Lamb's quarters and sorrel became staples in my now twice-weekly fresh deliveries. At the
Tim markets “melange funky,” which is a mix of whatever wild edible plants are available at the time with herbs, edible flowers (clover, tufted vetch, daisy, chicory — to name a few), some salad greens and whatever microgreens he has not been able to sell on a given week.
beginning of the season when quality was highest, I was selling each of these for $30/kilo, and as we entered mid-summer I dropped down to $20/kilo. I experimented also with selling bitter greens like dandelion and perennial or field sow thistle at $25 or $20/kilo. Eventually I pioneered something I market as a “melange funky,” which is essentially a mix of whatever wild edible plants are available at the time with herbs, edible flowers (clover, tufted vetch, daisy, chicory — to name a few), some salad greens (including my finally pitiful spinach harvest) and whatever microgreens I haven't been able to sell on a given week. Technically, it might be categorized as a kind of mesclun mix, which historically in the south of France included dandelion as an ingredient. I had some early success selling my funky mix at $25/kilo, but when the growing season was in full swing I found that some other much more well-established farms sold high-quality very clean “normal” mesclun mixes for as low as $13/kilo. It's hard for a new farmer working alone to match these kinds of prices, and for the uniqueness that wild edible plants can bring, it degrades the value of your product offering to go too low.
But nature is happy to provide me with many new wild products every couple of weeks or so. I had great success with selling buds of milkweed flowers (when they're still green, before the flowers open) starting initially at $40/kilo. I've found that it's better to start with a slightly higher price when each new wild edible plant at its freshest and excitement to have it is at its highest, and then gradually back off on the price until that plant’s time in the season has passed.
To start your own wild foods business, you really only need three things: First, is the expertise to identify edible plants and to know the right time to harvest them. The only way to develop this knowledge is through direct experience. As Euell Gibbons used to say, you don't need to learn the inedible ones. But once you've identified a particular edible wild plant, you'll never forget it. It's like a new friend. In fact, you'll start to recognize it anywhere. This will give you plenty of chances to taste-test and to learn first hand when they are at their peak. Always follow one simple rule though: never eat anything if you're not 100 per cent certain what it is.
Second, you need to find the best way to present your products. In some of the bigger urban areas, wild foods are very well-established and there are already big players who have developed a network of harvesters and buyers. In order to create new markets for wild foods, it's necessary to educate the tastes of your clients as you develop your own expertise. For my part, I've tried to share my excitement for these “new” food sources by bringing in free samples to chefs, and following up by emailing recipes and links for people to learn more on their own. It's common for restaurants to want to be able to present to their clients unique tastes and products that differentiate them from their competitors. You have to be able to provide them with the tools to see how your wild food products can help them do that.
Lastly, you need to develop relationships with buyers who are open-minded and who trust your ability to identify and bring in the highest quality wild produce. I've found that the best way to develop the wild foods aspect of my business has been to link it to other products that are “less “risky,” such as fine herbs. Once people know that your cultivated products are good and you know what you're talking about, they're more likely to want to try some of the new discoveries you bring them. Though I've succeeded (on a very small scale) by having close ties to one commercial kitchen, your best bet is to develop a strong network of chefs and friends willing to buy your wild harvests. You don't want to get stuck with a bunch of high quality produce that took you hours to find and harvest — and no buyer. You can of course always eat it and transform it yourself.
As far as equipment goes, you don't need much. Basically you can get by with just your hands and something to put your harvest in. For me, I regularly buy fifty packs of Glad “Large” Twist-Tie bags (3.97L). But when I started out, I was just using whatever left-over plastic bags we already had in a drawer at the house from our routine shopping trips. I switched to the clear bags because it looks more professional and better show-cases the amazingly varied and fresh look of your wild harvests. I have noticed a certain strain developing in my hands from harvesting with no tools though. Usually for most things, I can just pull and harvest. It's quick and doesn't require me to pick up and put down a tool again and again. With your hands you can go fast, and when the harvest is good and your buyers all lined up, it's really like putting money in a bag. But to guard the long-term viability of my project, I've recently switched to using scissors sometimes to help change up the movement and prevent too much repetitive strain.
My next innovation will be to craft some kind of simple harvest bag that I can hang from my neck in front of my body to enable me to have two free hands. Ideally, that will include some sort of clips to hold open the empty plastic bags, so I can harvest and pack right there in the field, while carrying a few finished bags, and periodically go back to a drop-off point (a box or cooler). I try not to refrigerate for more than 24 hours before making a delivery to guarantee maximum freshness of the plants and to maintain the “look” of the wild plant as much as possible. Your best bet is to gain a reputation for having the freshest wild produce available. The best chefs won't want your week old refrigerated finds; though canning and other methods of preservation can also create a nice value-added sideline — if local food laws permit it.
Ultimately though, what's amazing about a wild foods business is that you really don't even need to have a farm at all to get started. It's one of the few “agricultural” enterprises which does not require a lease or title to land. Many successful foragers are able to operate entirely on public lands (where it's legal to harvest, that is), or through agreements with private land-owners. If you live in a rural area, you might simply ask your neighbors if you can harvest wild edible plants on their property and pay them with a portion of your harvest. They may be excited to learn about food plants already growing on their property they never knew they could make use of.
All that said, I think harvesting and selling wild foods is an ideal sideline for an existing small farm business because it fills in gaps in production and helps to monetize parts of a property which would otherwise be considered “waste” areas. But perhaps most importantly, getting into wild foods helps to re-align the thinking of the small farmer to be more in tune with the many gifts that nature offers us. At the end of the day, maybe we can all learn that weeds (or most of them, anyway) aren't some horrible enemy to be sprayed and ripped from the earth, so much as they can be friends, allies, sources of food and profit. And instead of weeding being a dreaded chore, it can become a nourishing harvest instead!
Harvesting pro-tips: Be careful where and when you harvest
I had some great harvest spots between 10-20 metres from a rented field on our property until the renter started spraying fungicide every few days on his potato crop. Reading through the material safety data sheets for some of those chemicals he's applying next door to my wild foods has been eye-opening and frankly, a bit scary. We like to think that all wild foods should be automatically “organic” but that may not be the case if they grow close to areas of human activity.
If you're going to harvest near conventional agricultural areas, you must be aware of the spraying schedule and constituents, and harmonize yourself with that cycle. To be on the safe side, only harvest after more than 24-48 hours have passed since spray application and heavy rain has washed the wild plants in that area. And even then, I wouldn't harvest in any direct area of overspray, obvious drift or in a down-slope run-off from one of those fields, or in anything that is less than an acceptable buffer zone distance for organic production from conventional fields (technically 8m under the Canadian Organic Regime, General Principles and Management Standards, 5.1.4). Of course, if you're harvesting next to a hay field or oats, it’s far less likely you’ll ever have to worry about pesticides, herbicides and fungicides potentially tainting your wild food sources. So you have to know not just the plants you're harvesting, but the cultivation practices for the “normal” crops you're harvesting close to.
The same warnings should also be applied to harvesting alongside roads. To evaluate whether or not it's safe to harvest along a given roadside, ascertain: what kind of regular traffic does the road see? Is it a highway or a small unpaved country lane? Did it rain heavily in the past day or two? What about plants growing on manure piles? I'd personally let them be until the pile is at least a year old, maybe two. There's no perfect answer for a lot of these questions, but don't harvest anything from anywhere you're not willing to eat yourself, to serve to your friends and family and to offer as healthy nourishing food for sale to your community. Harvesting wild plants is all about doing your research and exercising your better judgement. If you're not sure, don't do it.
Cultivate your wild friends
While you're harvesting or scouting for new spots, are there ways you can help the plants you're working with to flourish? One way is not over-harvesting. Fiddlehead ferns, for example: most people leave at least 3-5 fronds un-harvested so the plant won't just die.
Another way is to distribute fruits and seeds of those plants more broadly in the environment. In fact, this is kind of “the deal” that plants which produce berries for example make with birds and animals. Since the plant can't move, it offers the reward of a tasty treat passed through the digestive systems of mobile partners who are able to act as vehicles for the distribution of the plant species. You can do the same thing by simply removing and broadcasting wild seeds or even by obtaining and planting cuttings (if the plant reproduces vegetatively, like blackberries, for example), especially nearby: if one or two plants thrive in a certain spot, chances are good a few more will too. I've found in harvesting, sorrel for example, that I'll knock back or uproot a few of the competitor plants to help out the plants I'm harvesting from. But that's as far as I'll go, personally. There might be something to be gained by watering wild plants or even transplanting into your main garden. But there's something beautiful about maintaining wildness as part of the unique flavor of these plants. There’s something refreshing about being able to go out away from the garden and immerse yourself in these wild environments.
Wild edible plants – a partial list
Wild edible plants vary greatly according to region and climate, but here are a few that I've had at least initial limited success with (your mileage may vary). Also note: not all of these plants are edible in large quantities — so do your own research! Plants for a Future (www.pfaf.org) is a great cross-reference for edible and medicinal uses of common wild plants.
- Lamb's quarters (Chenopodium album)
Lamb’s quarters
- Common sorrel (Rumex acestosa)
- Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
- Field sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis)
- Wild mint (Mentha spp.)
- Wild mustards/radish/brassicas
- Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.)
- Clover (Trifolium spp.)
- Sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis)
- Tufted vetch (Vicia cracca)
- Daisy (Bellis perennis)
- Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
- Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
- Burdock (Arctium minus)
- Curly dock (Rumex crispus)
- Broad-leaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius)
- Sheep sorrel (Rumex acestosella)
- Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum)
- Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
- Pineappleweed (Matricaria discoidea)
- Bladder campion (Silene vulgaris)
- Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)
- Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)
- Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium)
- Chickweed (Stellaria media)
- Tim Boucher