Foraging for Golfballs

I’m finally getting around to doing the foraging that I talked so bravely about at the beginnings of 2008.  I dragged the significant other along for company and we headed over to the Pt. Washington State Forest just a short walk from out house.  I took note the other day of two guys getting out of a pick-up truck, dressed in camouflage, along side the road. I surmised it’s still hunting season and best to don my bright orange bicycling jacket.  I carried a backpack with water, my Leatherman, clippers, gloves, plastic bags and my plant identification books.  The Sig. brought his camera and off we went to forage.

Plant Families

oh, there’s just something righteous about harvesting your own food for lunch. The mini-hoop house is working out splendidly. The only exception is that the collards are stressed, though, the peppers are loving it. Today I harvested a head of buttercrunch lettuce, three radishes, a pepper and a salad spinner full of collards. I also started a flat of cress and a flat of rocket, which I’m intentionally calling ‘rocket’ instead of arugula. Maybe ‘rocket’ will become the new must-have salad green. I know, that’s already a reality, it just goes by the name of arugula.

Rocket is in the mustard, cabbage, or Cruciferous family. When learning about plant families, they are easier to remember when you can start to identify patterns of the different families. As example, flowers of cruciferous plants have 4 petal flowers, resembling a cross and the seed pods always form in a radial pattern around the stalk. Anyhow, if you grow you’re own rocket or other greens from the mustard family, let them go to seed and check out the flowers and seed pods.