Winter Foraging

Wild Foods in the Snow

Winter is one of the hardest seasons for foragers, and it’ll be a while until those spring greens grace the landscape again. Still, there’s A LOT you can forage in the snow, and I’ve harvested at least 50 different wild edible plants, seeds, roots, greens, and mushrooms in January.

The trick is knowing it’s out there, waiting to be found.

Read More: Winter Foraging: 50+ Wild Foods to Find in the Snow

Hop hornbeam seeds (and evergreen needles) on the snow mid-winter

If the weather freezes early, and stays frozen consistently, you can harvest late autumn wild fruits that are conveniently frozen on the vine for you. Things like highbush cranberry, nannyberry, and wild grapes will hang frozen all winter long.

Nannyberries in January

Under the snow, you can harvest wild cranberries, partridgeberries, and teaberries (aka. wintergreen) wait under the snow all winter long. These are easy to harvest if you know where to dig, or you can pick them in late winter/early spring as patches thaw out.

Harvesting cranberries in the spring, as snow melts. They’ve been frozen all winter long, and they’re delicious.

In areas without a lot of squirrels, or in mast years when the nut trees go crazy, you can harvest nuts all winter, too. Acorns, hazelnuts, beechnuts, etc.

But the more dependable crops this time of year are roots, seeds, mushrooms, and, believe it or not, greens.

There are plenty of winter mushrooms that are available all year round, both edible and medicinal.

A few of the mushrooms we harvest in winter.

Edible wild grains and seeds often hang on the stalk all winter long, waiting for spring rains (and birds) to disperse them the following year.

The seed spikes poke up out of the snow, and you can pull them off by the handful. This time of year, wild quinoa, plantain seed, and yellow dock seed are plentiful just about everywhere.

Plantain Seeds that I harvested on a snowy day in February.

Wild greens will stay refrigerated under a blanket of snow, or simply continue to grow all winter long in warmer areas without snow cover.

This is a good time of year to harvest evening primrose greens, daisy greens, mullein, watercress, and others. Very early spring greens may start to sprout now as well, including chickweed, claytonia, marsh marigold, and dandelion.

Perennial and biennial roots stay fresh underground as part of their lifecycle, and you can often identify the remains of the plants sticking up out of the snow. Good choices for edible wild roots in the winter months include burdock, bull thistle, and evening primrose. If you know where to find a good patch, you can also harvest Jerusalem artichokes and spring beauty roots.

Obviously, don’t harvest any wild roots that are hard to identify out of season, like Queen Anne’s Lace.

And, of course, winter is the very best time for harvesting Usnea, and edible and medicinal lichen species.

There’s a lot out there, you just need to know where to look =)

Usnea found after a mid-winter storm knocked it down from a high canopy

Things You Might Need This Week

• Chaga Tincture ~ If you do find yourself some chaga, it’s best to harvest it in winter when the host tree is dormant. Here’s how to make use of it in a tincture.

• Herbal Immunity Tea ~ Keep your immune system strong so you can keep on keepin’ on this season.

Seasonal Preserving

Recipes to keep your larder full all year round…in season now:

• How to Render Tallow (& Ways to Use It)

• Best Vegetables to Dehydrate for Winter Soups

• Canning Quince

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Things I’m Loving

• Ember Instafire Oven ~ This is a small, off-grid oven that you can run on candles or twigs from the woods. We got one to test out, and the littles have been putting it through its paces. Heated with twigs like a rocket stove, it preheats in about 15 minutes, and my 8-year-old loves her new “easy bake oven.” She kept it at 350 on her own, and baked up a batch of cupcakes out in the woods.
  

  Though you can use it outdoors fueled by just about anything, I love that you can use canned heat for baking indoors when the power’s out too. It’s absolutely perfect to pull out during power outages, and it keeps the littles busy (and happy) without electronics.

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…

Until Next Time,

Ashley at Practical Self Reliance