Grazing your Neighbourhood

Wildcrafting and wild edibles

As we move into the growing season, there is more and more interest in wildcrafting and wild harvesting. If this is your intention, there are a few factors to consider. A colleague of mine, Kate Frego in New Brunswick calls them the five Ps of grazing. I offer them to you as follows.

Plant: identification is key. Get yourself a field guide. Study it. Know the harmful species as well as those that are edible. Even safe ones, may not be palatable to you. We offer the NS Plants book as a free download: http://museum.novascotia.ca/Books

Place: Gathering food from a safe habitat is paramount. Sites beside a busy 100 series highway may have residues from vehicle exhaust, roadside or forest pesticides. These are not habitats safe for gathering food.

Proper: This P refers to the careful harvesting, in a sustainable manner. Species-at-risk of extinction in Nova Scotia should not be harvested for food. One example of this is the Wild Leek (Allium tricoccum or A. burdickii). With limited populations, it is unethical to harvest them for food. In addition plants should be collected in such a way that does not hinder their ability to recover from the harvest. Digging fiddleheads instead of cutting them individually, kills the plant. A rule of thumb is to take one in 10 for food.

Part of the plant is significant. For example, the potato plant produces red tomato-like fruit in addition to the familiar tuber, or swollen underground stem that we consume. The fruit is mildly toxic, while the tuber is definitely edible. Canada Yew seeds are deadly poison, yet the fleshy red aril surrounding the seeds is edible.

Preparation of the food collected for eating. Again using the fiddlehead example. These delicious spring greens must be cooked at high temperatures for 10-12 minutes after careful scrubbing. Lightly sauteeing or 2-3minutes in the microwave is insufficient to denature whatever chemical causes illness in some individuals.

Some of the edibles available in May in Nova Scotia include fiddleheads, chickweed leaves for salad, dandelion greens, violet flowers for salads and glazing.



Wild Leek in flower, photo by Ross Hall
Wild Yew, Taxus canadensis, photo by Ross Hall
chickweed, Stellaria graminea, photo by Martin Thomas

Fiddleheads- a spring treat

A culinary delight, fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of the Ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris. Delicious in soups, chowders and as a side, they must be thoroughly rinsed and cooked before eating. Best to purchase fiddleheads from farmers’ markets and grocery stores, they are often confused with other ferns when young. Only the Ostrich fern produces the edible fiddlehead, although all ferns produce fiddleheads. Most of our commercial fiddleheads are grown and harvested in New Brunswick. They are available during April and May usually.

In Nova Scotia, look for these ferns early in spring in lowlands, while the river beds are still cool and soggy from spring melt. The fiddleheads are harvested by cutting and not digging or pulling. This way the plant thrives to produce more fronds next year. Ostrich fern is often planted by gardeners in shady wet spots for added texture and interest. Be sure you collect fiddleheads from only the Ostrich fern.

For more information on fiddlehead toxicity, please turn tohttp://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/eating-nutrition/safety-salubrite/fruits-vegetables-legumes-fruits/fiddlehead-fougere-eng.php

And my colleague Jim Goltz wrote an interesting rebuttal to popular reports touting raw consumption of these plants.


Ostrich Fern fiddleheads, Photo by Ross Hall