What is in your Foraging Kit?

Good Morning Permies,

I am interested to know what are your go-to tools and supplies for when you go out foraging?

Do you have a preferred tool, container, clothing?

Do you just have general supplies and look for everything at once or do you go out with a specific item in mind to forage?

I want to hear it all and collect information on people's foraging kits.

Thanks!

I'm not a huge forager. I mostly gather berries around my property when they ripen up, and seeds that I'd like to grow next year. So I keep ziplock bags in my car and the pockets of my cargo shorts for seeds. If I'm going for berries I take paper quart bins or plastic pails. I also have this knife that my daughter gave me:

This reply is (a little) tounge in cheek:
I like to keep tarps, alcohol based hand sanitizer and a long(expandable) stick in  my car.
This covers most of the foraging I do, because I'm usually diving dumpsters!

Metal colander with drain holes. Tried mushroom hunting with paper bags while everything was wet once, didn't go well.

A tub of sulfur for chiggers.

Some things are constant - a good, sharp knife, gloves, essential oil insect repellent, and protective shoes, for example. Other things are dependent on what & when I'm foraging, like: containers - i.e. an appropriately sized basket (berries, leaves, whole plants, blossoms...), bag (mainly mushies), or bucket (roots, tubers, other messy things); shoes (hot dry weather, primarily low-risk areas) or boots (cool/wet weather, brambles, venomous snake hazards, etc); sequiturs (for anything too sturdy to cut with merely a knife, like branches for bark tinctures); a small shovel &/or gardening claw (roots, tubers, whole plants).

Also good to have - a broad-brimmed hat, water or herbal tea, a pad or something to sit on (for resting my achy joints, recovering from whichever chronic ailment decides to attack me, etc), and my phone, because if my hypermobility issues cause me yet another fall, I may need emergency assistance to get back in, from whichever part of our acreage I'm foraging, at the moment, as well as for taking pictures of the abundant flow & fauna, here.

It sounds like a lot to carry, but it all either fits into my pockets, clips to belt loops, has a holster, has a carrying strap to be slung over a shoulder, or is just worn. So, my hands are, with the exception of the basket, essentially empty. Even the bags roll or fold up into themselves, and only need to be carried in hand, if they get filled - if they're not tied to my belt.

I picked up a berry picker this year and love it!!!  Can't believe I didn't get one sooner.

Greg Martin wrote:I picked up a berry picker this year and love it!!!  Can't believe I didn't get one sooner.

THAT is what I need! We have acres of wild blackberries, and I just can't stand in the heat(seems like it's always 100°F+, when they ripen), in my thorn-protective clothes, long enough to hand pick enough for more than one dessert.

we always carry a loosely woven basket when gathering mushrooms to spread the spores as we're walking along. Also, whereever I go I usually wear big pockets with a pocket-sized clipper/secaturs and a fold-uppable bag or 2 in case I come across seeds, scions, or miscellaneous nibbles to gather.

Most of my foraged food goes from hand to mouth.

When I plan a day of foraging, I take a backpack, and a long walking stick, aka pretend defense against mountain lions. I take bags, so that I can sort things as I pick.

My Colleague at work from Tennessee gave me this little knife as a gift,
because the "Made in Germany Loewen Knife" was worn out and the blade half the size as it was before.

I have since my childhood a pocket knife in my pocket.
It was mandatory for boys, when you changed from pre school to the primary School having a good quality pocket knife...

If I find something on my forest tours, the knife will help me to make a transportation basket or pack/wrap like a banana leaf...
If I go with a purpose like picking a seasonal berries then I will take a basket with me...

That berry picker looks interesting - thanks for sharing
… although, in retrospect, seems you’d get a mix of ‘ready’ and not-so-ready to pick berries

Most of my foraging is on my 7 acre plot in the rolling wooded hills of S.E, Central Ohio (“Hocking Hills”). Most of the time I’m foraging for greens, flowers, shoots, and berries so my tool requirements are few. One thing I found to be very useful is a carpenter’s apron with many pockets for sorting and some tools (knife, pruning shears). When berries are in season I carry a nice old one gallon blue-speckled enamelware pot with a bail handle.

Mostly I’m barefooted (weather permitting) as most of my foraging is in my barefoot-friendly yarden and along the wood’s edge. I do venture into the woods barefooted, too, until it gets too overgrown with scrub-sticker booshes (Appalachian speak for ‘bushes’)

It depends…

I almost never just go out vaguely foraging. Usually I know exactly where to go, what for, when and how long it “should” take me.

I gather a lot of mushrooms. Usually that just consists of me grabbing a basket from my back seat and using the pocket knife I always have on me.

If I go apple picking I’ll take a picker and either boxes, crates, bags or buckets.

For grapes I bring tupperware containers, a small ladder and scissors.

For berries, rosehips, hazelnuts and wild plums I have plastic containers with a shoelace through them that I wear like a necklace so that I can pick with both hands. I fill those and then empty into bigger tupperware containers or baskets.

For leeks/ramps, ideally I just need a container or basket for the greens and another one for the bulbs. I clean and separate in the woods. Sometimes I bring a small shovel and a hand rake but if I time it right, which is always my goal, i dont need any of that. Just my hands and a specific technique.

Occasionally I’m more adventurous and will explore a bit. In that case, I’ll take a backpack with food, water, compass, appropriate clothes, maybe geranium oil for ticks and bugs, maybe some maps, probably a bigger knife or multitool, a hatchet or small folding saw and usually let someone know roughly where I’m going. And a couple paper bags and baskets for whatever I may find.

Timothy Norton wrote:Good Morning Permies,

I am interested to know what are your go-to tools and supplies for when you go out foraging?

Do you have a preferred tool, container, clothing?

Do you just have general supplies and look for everything at once or do you go out with a specific item in mind to forage?

I want to hear it all and collect information on people's foraging kits.

Thanks!

When I go out, in general I go on my bicycle. Most of the time I have two panniers at the back rack. I can fill them with wild edibles (nuts, blackberries, wild herbs, mushrooms). In the front I have a basket to carry my other stuff (purse, glasses, phone, rain-poncho, knife). I don't think I need anything else. Of course I have clothes on that are suited for going in the woods in the type of weather it is that day.

Now I read the other replies I see many take bags or other containers with them. Maybe I'm somewhat chaotic, but often I just throw everything in the pannier. Then at home, if needed, I start sorting out and cleaning (in the kitchen).

Most of the time I go out foraging for only one specific thing (one kind of fruit/nut). Sometimes I also find an edible mushroom or so.

Okay, Greg,

Where is your affiliate link to this product so we can click on it, we get a discount and you get a little bit of a finder's fee?  

Have you tried it with Autumn Olive?  It grows invasively, here.  But, my solution to that is pick the fruit and make jam out of it, this time of year.  

Greg Martin wrote:I picked up a berry picker this year and love it!!!  Can't believe I didn't get one sooner.

Andrew Rule wrote:Okay, Greg,

Where is your affiliate link to this product so we can click on it, we get a discount and you get a little bit of a finder's fee?  

Have you tried it with Autumn Olive?  It grows invasively, here.  But, my solution to that is pick the fruit and make jam out of it, this time of year.  

Teehehe!  I could be wrong, but if we put up an Amazon link I think Paul may get a tiny bit of coin to support the empire.  Just in case that's true:  Ergonomic Berry Picker at Amazon  Price is only 9 bucks at the moment.  Lowest I've ever seen it!

Funny you ask about Autumn Olive because that's my next target with this picker.  One thing you want with these pickers is a plant that matures its fruit all at the same time....check!  Autumn Olive does that very well.  The thing that I'm wondering about is the branching pattern.  Autumn Olive carries its fruit at the base of new shoots so I'm wondering how hard it might be to get them without filling the basket with leaves.  My Autumn Olives are just about ready to harvest so I'll find out soon.  They are such great berries when fully ripe.  I'm hoping this works well for them.  I'll post as soon as I give it a go.  

Andrew Rule wrote:Have you tried it with Autumn Olive?

Sorry for the slow reply on this one.  Was waiting for the autumn olives to be drop dead ripe.  They're starting to fall off so it's time.  I tried the berry hand rake, but I didn't enjoy using it for them.  Felt slow because of the branch structure.  Or maybe it's just that I'm used to picking them with both hands into a bucket on a strap that I hang around my neck.  I like raking them with my fingers into my two hands and then rolling the good ones into the bucket while getting rid of the bad ones.  Here's what I cleared off a bush on the edge of my lawn this morning.  Relaxing!

So I guess a bucket with a strap to free both hands for picking has always been high on my foraging tool list too.

You can easily make one from a small bucket (small because you don't want too much weight hanging from your neck!).  But if you want the one I pictured then here's a link to the one I got:  Berry Picking Bucket

it’s nut season! my car-foraging kit this time of year includes a big stack of 5-gallon buckets, plus a mid-sized ‘holt’s nut wizard’ for acorns and hickories and a few larger plastic bins to dump buckets into if i get into a good walnut spot.

Greg Martin wrote:

Andrew Rule wrote:Okay, Greg,

Where is your affiliate link to this product so we can click on it, we get a discount and you get a little bit of a finder's fee?  

Have you tried it with Autumn Olive?  It grows invasively, here.  But, my solution to that is pick the fruit and make jam out of it, this time of year.  

Teehehe!  I could be wrong, but if we put up an Amazon link I think Paul may get a tiny bit of coin to support the empire.  Just in case that's true:  Ergonomic Berry Picker at Amazon  Price is only 9 bucks at the moment.  Lowest I've ever seen it!

Funny you ask about Autumn Olive because that's my next target with this picker.  One thing you want with these pickers is a plant that matures its fruit all at the same time....check!  Autumn Olive does that very well.  The thing that I'm wondering about is the branching pattern.  Autumn Olive carries its fruit at the base of new shoots so I'm wondering how hard it might be to get them without filling the basket with leaves.  My Autumn Olives are just about ready to harvest so I'll find out soon.  They are such great berries when fully ripe.  I'm hoping this works well for them.  I'll post as soon as I give it a go.  

Ok, that berry picker is now on sale for $6.55.  Now I'm thinking about the foragers on my Christmas list.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Maybe I'm somewhat chaotic, but often I just throw everything in the pannier.

Love this Inge! I do the same.

I'm also a bicycle forager, as cycling is my primary mode of transportation. I always carry a pair of secateurs, bungee cords, and a folding pruning saw in my pannier just in case. I always ride with my backpack, so there's always a bit of extra storage space available for harvesting things. I'll often pop avocados, persimmons, walnuts, and other hard-skinned things directly into the pannier. However, if I know I'm going to be collecting something that is a bit more fragile, shouldn't get wet or really gathers dust (persimmons, acorns, mushrooms, bamboo shoots) etc, I'll bring some cloth bags to put in my panniers and backpack so that they don't get completely covered in dirt (my panniers always have dirt in the bottom from transporting plants, haha)