The Bounty in My Paper Bag

 
To me summertime means relaxing evening strolls, getting together with friends and family and riding around town on my bike. Throw in a little adventure and that’s exactly what I got tonight. It was a very sensory experience -- sweet smells of flowers and fruit, earthy smells of dried grass and soil, savory and spicy tastes, softness of leaves, pricks from thorns, reaching and pedaling and walking, the sound of creatures munching on seeds, cool blue water gliding swiftly and steadily, the warm sun on my shoulders and the cottonwood’s cotton floating across my arms.

Based on my previous post, you know and I can admit that I have been irrationally obsessing about elderberries. These things have lead me down a road to a cornucopia of crazy thoughts. I’m almost willing to think I’ve been in a trance of unusual edible river plants. Say that three times fast. Thank goodness I have partners in crime willing to entertain my -- lets say -- creative ideas. My goal was to collect elderberry blossoms, elderberries if possible, wild river grape leaves, scout for blackberry bushes and walnut trees. We did it! I have three bags full of bounty and found even found a wildflower patch, some date palms, fig trees and wild fennel for next time. And for me, I found so much more. I found a new side to my city and my creativity.

You may ask, what does this have to do with gardening? I think it has a lot to do with it -- paying attention to what is going on around you is a necessary tool for a gardener. This is why my garden went in the ground “late” and my neighbors’ garden is dead but went in “on time.” And as long as your purpose for gardening is to provide healthful food to you and yours, foraging is a perfectly acceptable gardening adventure. You still need to have your home garden but why not supplement it if you have rich surroundings full of edible things that grow naturally. Plus you don’t have to use up precious space in your yard for things that already exist and are up for the taking. I also take the time to observe insects, the conditions of plants, what is blossoming, fruiting, leafing out, dying and I visually check the soil type. In a way this is adding to my education and I believe will help me as a gardener.

While we were out pedaling around I noticed that the places we were finding food were also the places that I found an abundance or wild animals. There were quail, a mother turkey with her poults, an owl, many many voles, and I saw the scat of maybe a mountain lion. This sounds like we put a lot more pedaling power in than we actually did. The fact is that we didn’t ride more than three miles from my apartment. It’s pretty ridiculous to think that we were able to find all of this so close to the metropolis. It just goes to show that if you take the

time to take a focused look, you can see where you live, where you walk, where you work everyday in a whole different way. It’s pretty neat I think.

So, what am I going to do with my loot? I’m going to make the strawberry and elderberry jam tarts just as I said I would and I’m going to preserve the wild grape leaves to make dolmades. For me it’s mostly the experience of searching and finding. While I was collecting these things it so reminded me of when I was a kid and how we would mix alfalfa pellets with our chickens eggs and mix in daisy petals and probably some type of poisonous berry. We would make patties and dry them in the sun. It was just fun to find things that seemed edible and mix them together. We would never eat them but it was the adventure of the pretend and it felt magical to us. To me, this was a similar experience but it wasn’t pretend and I’ll actually use these things to make something delicious.

It seemed that with the swish of a wand we were dumped back into the city. It was actually more like a “weeeeeeeeeee” on our bicycles down the side of the levy that brought us back but I was still living in a magical childhood moment at the time. By the time we rode back to my neighborhood I felt like my city -- the one that I know like the back of my hand -- had transformed into something that I wasn't familiar with. I actually took my camera out and took a picture of my "front yard," something (that tourists take pictures of all the time) that I take for granted. As I took the picture I got smirks from people that probably thought I was a cheesy tourist but I didn’t care.

Go out and find your local bounty and see your town, city or pastures in a whole new light - I think you’ll find that you won’t have to go far.

Disclaimer: Of course always make sure that you are not taking anything that is a protected species or something that is located in a preservation site or revegetation area. Always leave plenty of goodies for the creatures that depend on it as their food source and enough for the plant to reseed or return in the coming year - simply choose to be smart and ethical about it.

Daphne