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Tag Archives: wild foods

Foraging for Edible Wild Plants (or Parts Thereof) in Winter

Wait, what? Foraging for Edible Wild Plants (or Parts Thereof) in Winter, seriously? Yup! Trust me. Don’t stop reading. Stay with me here. Gathering wild foods in Nebraska IS NOT … I repeat IS NOT just a spring, summer or fall outdoor activity, it can be done in winter even with snow cover. I learned this from my grandfather, Frank Hintz. And I have done it successfully. Remember, if I can do it, you can do it! Plus foraging this …

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6 Favorite Wild-Grown Foods of Fall

It’s autumn. It’s heavy sweatshirt weather. It’s the season for football and pumpkin-spiced everything. And, it’s time to pick pumpkins and harvest the last of the tender crops from your vegetable garden. But, did you know that beyond the pumpkins and the squash, fall marks the time of year for gathering and preparing tasty fare from wild places? Sure does. The landscape that surrounds us in Nebraska is actually more lush with wild edible material during autumn than you would …

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Nuts!?

Nature’s fantastic color show is emerging in the west and north. To me, that means the forest floor will soon be saturated with autumn leaf matter as well as something else — nuts! Freshly fallen black walnuts on the forest floor along a creek bottom in southeastern Nebraska woodlands. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. One of the reasons to take a long walk in the woods during autumn is to gather some delicious, nutritious, wild or homegrown …

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3 Fall Mushrooms to Harvest

Double, double toil and trouble … It’s the Halloween season and a witch’s brew is not complete without a moist, edible fall mushroom or two, right? Just kidding. But, guess what? We have an array of fall fungi in Nebraska perfect for your dinner plate. The greatest variety of mushrooms is usually found from about mid September through mid November, depending on weather and conditions. I realize it has been dry in places around the state, but any welcome rains …

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Foraging for Wild Fruits and Berries in Nebraska

I always get rather impatient this time of year. Is it because of the weather being so hot, humid and hazy? No. Is it that the hunting seasons are just around the bend? No. Then, why? Well, I am a gatherer, a prairie wanderer, and I am anxiously waiting to harvest elderberries during these dog days of summer. However, it’s not quite time yet. Here I am checking out wild elderberries for ripeness on a Saunders County, NE farm in …

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Mulberries!

Maybe it’s just the kid in me, but I love to pick and eat mulberries! Your blogger enjoys eating ripe mulberries right off of the tree! Photo by Katie Stacey/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Growing up on the rural western edge of Gretna, NE, my buddies and I would always bug the area neighbors and farmers for permission to pick and eat ripe mulberries along their woodland edges and fencelines this time of year. It marked the start of summer …

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Stalking Nebraska’s Wild Asparagus

The apple blossoms have emerged. Why is that important, you say? Well, it is a reliable indicator that tells me I now will find one of my most valued vegetables in Nebraska’s rural landscape — wild asparagus. The wild asparagus harvest season almost always overlaps with the emergence of apple blossoms in my eastern Nebraska area. Apple blossoms. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Sure enough, I was right! Wild asparagus emerging in early May in eastern Nebraska. …

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The Plants Growing In Your Yard That You Can Eat (No Kidding!)

You have just read the title to this blog and you’re thinking ‘Whoa, Wagner is way off base with this one!’ PL-EASE … Allow me to explain. Now that spring has sprung, some of the more prolific, more accessible wild edible foods will soon begin to make their initial appearances … in your yard! No kidding! This is the time of year when when edible wild plants emerge and they are their most tender, tastiest stage. Know that your own …

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What is it going to take for morel mushrooms to emerge?

Tersh Kepler of Omaha, NE, one of the Midwest’s foremost morel mushroom hunting experts, is hoping for two things these early spring days: More what he calls “liquid gold” and warm rays from BOB in the sky. The “liquid gold” would be more measurable precipitation in the form of rain and the warm rays from BOB would be the heat provided by the big orange ball in the sky, the sun. Kepler says the conditions have been very windy and …

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What to know about the morel mushroom hunting season that has begun

Good news … The morel mushroom hunting season has begun! Morels are now being found near dead and decaying hardwood trees like cottonwoods and elms in moist eastern Nebraska river bottom woodlands. Tersh Kepler of Omaha is Nebraska’s morel mushroom hunting expert with more than 50 years of experience and he points out there are some important things to know about morel mushroom hunting before venturing to the woods. Kepler found early season morels with the arrival of May and …

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