Early October 2022| Practical Self Reliance
Fall Foraging, Foliage & Last Minute Repairs
It’s early October, there’s nowhere that Autumn shows her true colors like the hillsides of Vermont. What was once a sea of green, now pops with vibrant reds, yellows and swaths of orange. It’s one last hurrah before winter comes in earnest.
We’ve already had our first hard frosts, and the flurry of activity around preserving the last of the years tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, and all the other truly frost sensitive crops has passed. There’s still plenty of cold hardy vegetables, mostly greens and root crops, to fill our plates, and we’ll be harvesting from the garden until around Christmas time in a good year.
Now that all the frantic late summer preservation is past, there’s breathing room to literally sit back and enjoy the scenery, or in my case…get out there and harvest some of it.
My foraging trips mostly stop from mid-August to late-September because that is an unrelentingly busy time of year, and by far the best time to fill our stores for the year ahead without setting foot outside the garden.
Conveniently, there’s not actually all that much wild produce to harvest that time of year, at least compared to other months. Now in October, the first frosts actually ripen and sweeten all of the otherwise bitter and astringent long season wild fruits.
Things like Autumn Olive and Highbush Cranberry were technically “ripe” last month, but even the birds ignored them then. Once temps really drop, they sweeten right up and lose most of their astringency, which is rather convenient for foragers who just couldn’t see past the garden for the past few months.
I’ve been checking many of my favorite spots all summer, but most of them didn’t bare any fruit. It may have been a record year for summer berries, but the autumn fruits were coming up empty. I asked around on our local email list if anyone knew of any good spots, and several people offered to let me scout their land for wild edibles.
I am thankful to everyone who opened their land to me in the past few weeks. It was lovely to get to explore a few tucked away places that most people, beyond the landowner, won’t ever see.
One in particular really sticks with me, and my day there was honestly magical (Thanks Emily!). A south facing hillside with 350 acres of forest and field, surrounded by thousands of acres of conservation land. Though I was there at the very beginning of foliage season, when only a few of the trees had started to turn, the views were absolutely stunning.
I harvested autumn olive and hawthorn from that hillside, right along the edges of the woods where field meets the trees. Deeper in the woods I saw black cherry, healthy beech trees baring great crops of beech nuts (rare these days), and mature maples larger than I’ve encountered anywhere.
To be able to steward such a place is truly a gift, and I'm so happy I got to see it, even if just for a day.
That land, and the land of a few others, meant baskets of foraged fruit on my table…and lots of what my husband calls “jars of science experiments” in the kitchen.
While wild summer berries are sweet and perfect for popping into your mouth on a hike…the fruits of autumn require a bit more hard work and devotion. Just about all of them are seedy, acidic and astringent. Most have large inedible pits of one kind or another, meaning you’re cooking and screening the pulp (rather than using them whole).
The same is true of wild edible nuts like black walnuts and butternut. They may be delicious and nutrient dense…but you’re going to work hard for those calories in your larder.
With acorns, that’s even more true. They may be available by the tractor trailer load under oak forests, but this free food is paid for in processing time.
Making acorn flour, and leaching the tannins from the nuts is a lot more arduous than most people are willing to tolerate (at least in modern times). I honestly think it’s rather meditative, cracking acorns in the autumn sunshine.
Though they’re commonly associated with American Indian Tribes, acorns were once a part of the traditional food supply in Greece, Italy, Spain, North Africa and throughout Asia.
Modernity is nice, and I’m not saying I’m giving up my washing machine…but sometimes it’s nice to spend a few hours remembering where you came from, even if it’s not strictly necessary for survival in a neolithic cave.
Our acorn flour goes into porridge, bread, and acorn flour pancakes, but also into things like acorn flour chocolate chip cookies, and even acorn ice cream. Promises of those kind of treats will have the littles raking up acorns all afternoon, skipping and singing.
Beyond getting some well earned R&R off hiking and foraging during foliage season, we’re also doing the last work to batten down the hatches before winter.
Our greenhouse has needed some minor repairs all summer, but when you’re working with a giant box of glass, even a “minor” repair can become a major ordeal.
On the bright side, we now know how to operate a commercial lift…and that’s gotta count for something, right?
What are you harvesting, preserving, building or exploring on your homestead this week? I’d love to hear about it!
Leave me a note in the comments…
(Comments only, please. Emails tend to get lost in my inbox, and as much as I’d love to get back to each and everyone, my screen time is very limited…and things fall through the cracks, and emails get buried in my inbox. If you comment here, they’re all in one place, and it’s much easier to get back to every single one.)
Until Next Time,
Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
You are the only other person who has acknowledged “autumn olive” . I also would harvest the red buds from staghorn sumac. Learned many years ago a great middle eastern seasoning .
I'm harvesting the last of the tomatoes and peppers. Baking with apple cider and trying new recipes.