Surfacing From Summer Foraging Mayhem – Biblical Natural Health Coaching

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The summer foraging season has been a major whirlwind for us this year, but I think I’m starting to crawl out from under it. The tub of crushed chokecherry leaf used by Ashtree Wildcrafting as a base for several of the looseleaf teas, is largely full with two more trays of leaf to add to it. We won’t have it 100% full, but we have it 95% full.

I learned that 7.5 cups of chokecherry syrup require 2 pouches of pectin to be made into a jelly. One pouch didn’t do it, but the second one firmed up quite well! I used two former 1lr jam jars, and got them mostly full. If I had filled them equally, they would have filled to the hip on both of them. That means for the cost of sugar and pectin, these jars of jelly were 1/3rd to 1/4 the cost of the same size jars of jam at the grocery store! During our errand run last week, we were shocked to discover the cost of that size jar now up around $7 for the brand we typically buy, and closer to $10 or even $11 for other brands on the shelf. I’ll buy the pectin thankyou very much!

Speaking of pectin, we will be returning to a private property to grab more crab apples. They make a light jelly, as in, not stiff like the concentrated stuff you buy at the store. Most of the haul will be dried for use in Ashtree Wildcrafting’s Orchard Rose tea, but some will also be used in the making of Rowan Jelly, from the Mountain Ash berry. The date for that harvest has not been set yet, but plans are in the works.

Our recent foraging hike took us back to our pasture sage stomping grounds. The plants did very well between our first visit and this past weekend! With so many plants now browned around them, their silvery bluish green fronds were easy to spot!

We also grabbed a bit more yarrow. This is a harvest we tend to do throughout the year as we can, because we always have a use for it if not in the teas, in home medicinal uses or even at the barn for various cuts and scrapes Bella might encounter. Have we said it’s a good stiptick?? It’s also antiseptic and anti-bacterial, so VERY useful to have out at the barn as well as at home!

We forgot to take photos, but we also grabbed more tarragon on this outing.

The to-be-crushed list at home now consists of mallow, golden rod, remains of lamb’s quarters (still, yes, I know!!!), hawthorn berries drying, two more trays of drying chokecherry leaf, and now the added sage, tarragon, and yarrow.

The fall schedule is filling up for craft fairs, with a wellness fair coming up September 28th followed a week later by another wellness fair on October 5th and 6th. Both these wellness fairs are in Vernon if you are in the area those weekends. The rest of the calendar is filling up with craft fairs as Ashtree Wildcrafting heads into the fall/Christmas fair season.

Keep an eye on that calendar for planning your fall foraging workshop dates so that you are committing to dates that I am available.

Speaking of foraging workshops, this past Wednesday was a Trail Tour, attended by two workshop alumni. The focus was on the fall berry harvest when I spotted this little snail up in a Black chokecherry bush! Sorry for how blurry the little one is, but I had to take a photo! Conversations were stimulating, and we all had a really good time on the trail! I was dismayed to discover that our former main chokecherry grove still hasn’t recovered from the drought we had a few years ago, still spindly-looking. But they had berries!

Berry season isn’t quite over yet, as many berries are available into and often beyond the first frost with some drying on the bush for you instead of you having to dry them at home. Some breeds of rose are not quite ready to harvest yet, half red/half orange. But other bushes are going to sleep already at that stage or drying the fruit on the stem at that stage. We’ve begun our rosehip harvest early due to the “ahem” crushing need for that ingredient in several of Ashtree Wildcrafting’s teas this coming year. Before the frost, you get a more tart flavour, after the frost you get a sweeter flavour. Either way, it’s a nice flavour and we’ll need as much as we can get this fall!

If you know of a fall/Christmas fair where you think Biblical Natural Health Coaching or Ashtree Wildcrafting would be a good fit, please let me know. As dates show up on the Castanet Events Calendar, I’m seeing dates where double-ups are starting to occur. This has already resulted in having to pass on some fairs we wanted to be at, because they were on the same date as other fairs we wanted to be at. We can’t split in half very well with only one vehicle and one set up. But any weekends not yet booked are open for any fairs happening on those dates that we’d be a good fit for.

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