If you've always wanted to harvest some wild greens like these wild nodding onions or coastal seafood but you just don't know where to go, here's a list of fun places to visit and pick some spring treats.
- Southern Gulf Islands - Great for harvesting seafood (uni, crab, fishing, oysters), seaweed and greens like nettles and fiddleheads. Only about 1 hour ferry to the closest
islands.
- Squamish - For spring mushrooms like oyster mushrooms and turkey tail, evergreen tips, cow parsnip, elderflower.
- Hemlock valley - Wild greens like fiddleheads, nodding onion, cattail shoot, sweet cicely, lily spears (false solomon's seal)
Forager's report
Last weekend, we collaborated with the Galiano Conservancy on a foraged dinner for the Penelakut First Nation. Check out what we harvested and cooked in the video below to
inspire your own forays in the southern gulf islands.
Just for perspective on our adventure, peeling a gallon bucket of cow parsnip and burdock root took Chef Zach a whole day, shucking 24 urchin, gathering and smoking all our seaweed and prepping a ton of spring flowers, phew. It's all so worth it, though, the dashi stock we made of spring sugar kelp blades was delicious, the kelp imparting a silky body and salty umami richness to the miso we made with it.
Spring is THE best.
