Foraging, an excellent useful and yet profitable skill that requires you to only identify and take what you want/need from nature. As I mentioned over in the Firewood thread, I'm an active forager who has found many ways to benifit and sometimes profit from going out in the woods and retrieving either something I need, or something someone else wants. Here I'll list a few examples of things I've foraged before, what I personally do with it, and then hand it over to you guys..
Foraged Goods
Fruits and Berries - I specifically forage for Pawpaws and Persimmons when it comes to the fruits of nature. Most people are honestly unaware of both of these, and yet I can walk out into the woods and generally find then within close vicinity. Pawpaws are a soft fragrant fruit with a similar taste and consistency of Bananas. They were favored among Native Americans, and are even collected/harvested during the modern day to help with cancer treatments. They are used to help make stubborn cells more susceptible to chemo therapy, and aid the body in stopping cell mutation.
Persimmons on the other hand, I'm not nearly as knowledgeable on, other than.. you mustn't eat or process them till they are fully ripe. Doing so otherwise, they act as a powerful laxative when not fully ripe and can cause severe stomach cramping. When ripe, however, they make a great preserve.. My fiance likes to process them into a fruit leather (like a fruit roll up, except natural and organic), and they taste an awful lot like apricots.. It really is delicious. As with most fruits, I'm certain they contain essential vitamins and nutrients.
As far as berries go, Black Berries are the common sought after berry around here. Although, they can only be harvested during the summer time. This past year was a rough season for black berry pickers. The birds ate just about everything before anyone got a chance to pick. Around here, Black Berries sell for $25 a gallon. People wash them and then sprinkle a little sugar on them before eating, while others bake black berry pies or make Black berry Dumplings (Mmm mmm). I intend to harvest as much as possible next year with the intention of making some black berry wine or dare I say... moonshine.
Also in this area is opossum grapes.. which are edible, so so I'm lead to believe.. But when I bought my old farmhouse, I later found that there was some old grape vines still a alive from years ago that produces large dark grapes. I'm unsure of the variety, but they are delicious.
Nuts - When it comes to nuts, there is a lot to pick from in the forest. Chestnuts, Hickory Nuts, Walnuts, etc. As for me, I tend to pick up all the Black Walnuts I can in my area. I store then in a dry place in feed sacks to cure for about a year. I have, in the past, used the green husks as a dye for ropes and wood stains. I don't forage a whole lot of nuts for one main reason.. my fiance is allergic to them. Not deathly bad, but bad enough and I dont do anything to infringe upon her health. Needless to say, Walnuts as well as the other nut varieties are often in high demand and easy to sell. Walnuts sell for between $80-$140 a truck load, but that depends on whether they are hulled and how bad the buyer wants to scam people. I trade/sell mine to the Mennonites who use it in their homemade candies and brownies, and usually trade for feed, flour, service work (they are excellent at small engine repair.. chainsaw, weedeater, ect).. all in all, I do pretty well.
On a side note, I'll throw acorns into this lot as well. As an avid amateur trapper, I use acorns to bait my live squirrel traps (walnuts work too). I dont kill the squirrels.. usually catch and release, or I'll keep them up for a while with intentions of breeding and re-releasing but.. I always let them go. In a SHTF situation, it's comforting to know I could catch some squirrels, and where they come so use to the idea of me releasing them, they make no efforts to not get caught in my traps.
Kindling - I suppose this is only important to people who use firewood as their heating source. As mentioned in the other Firewood thread, I've recently taken to foraging Pine Cones are Kindling/Fire-starter and for profit. I can sell a feed sack full for $5 a sack, and can roughly pick up 6-7 sacks and hour... more possibly if I employ a new method (taking a rake and raking the cones up into a pile vs. constantly bending over to pick up a mess here and a mess there.. which was what I did and still managed 6 sacks in an hour). I've even heard of people using pine needles as part of their kindling, but.. I'll stick to foraging the cones.
Besides pine cones, I make a habit to use any not rotten dead wood that is easily accessible.. I walk/explore the woods a lot and often I'll find big branches that have broken out of trees, or a tree that's fallen and has stayed leaning against another tree.. so as to not have rotted by laying on the ground. These are perfect examples of the type of firewood I try to claim.. this way I'm not purposely killing a live tree to heat my home. It's a morale sort of thing I suppose.
Abandoned Animal Habitats - I've found 3 birds nest on the ground in the past 2 days alone.. Two small ones and one medium sized one. People will actually pay decent money for these sort of things as they use sprayed glue and incorporate them into primitive decor or art pieces.. possible other things, idk. I have never sold birds nest though I do know people do buy them. One thing I know for sure people buy is Bee Nests.. I've sold 2 of these in the past, one for $20, and one for $40.. Just be careful to make sure they are inactive.. By nests, I mean the big round grey nests that are often hanging from trees or on the ground. The ones I've found were on the ground, and I only attempted to get them because it was snowing and they were close enough to my house that I could make the run in doors before getting stung to death in a worse case scenario.. both were empty though. People also dip these or apply some sort of polyurethane, and preserve the structure for decor or what have you.
Botanicals - There are tons of Botanicals out there, that is properly foraged, can earn you some pretty nice cash. The ones I primarily go after are Ginseng and Bloodroot. Ginseng will net you anywhere from $150-$300 a lb dried to much more.. depending on whether you sell to someone who resells to the chinese market or you take that upon yourself. Matured and unique root specimens have been known to sell in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in China (specifically, old roots that resemble a human figure). I hunt for ginseng every year and continuously save my dried specimens with the intent of selling all at once here in a few years. Some people will actually take ginseng they find in the wild and transplant it elsewhere closer to home so it can age, seed, and cultivate in a larger patch as a long term investment vehicle. Keep in mind ginseng requires specific growing conditions, but if planted suitably.. well, just Google what an acre of ginseng will net you after 5-6 years..
As for Bloodroot, it is primarily used as a dye and I sell it to a vendor for $50 a lb. But it is hard as hell to get a pound of it. Besides those main two, I also keep on the look out for Slippery Elm (Tree).. you can shave its bark, grind it into a powder and sell it for a good amount, but its been a few years since I've done this so I can't verify market prices... Hmm.. There's also Rattleweed (Black Cohosh) which is fairly easy to find. And I'm sure there are plenty others, these are just the primarily profitable/useful ones in my area.. to the best of my knowledge.
Mushrooms - While some areas do have sought after edible mushrooms, the only ones I know are.. well, psychedelic. Liberty Caps and Laughing Gems can be found in season, easily 100ft or so from my house in any direction.. Liberty caps have a unique bell shape with a slight nipple.. brown cap that grows in fields, beside roads, ect.. but I've mainly found them in fields or the yard around my house. Laughing gems are orange, grow in clusters on deadwood and/or tree stumps.. you definitely want to go to multiple lengths to verify these if that's what your looking for.. some poisonous mushrooms that could be mistaken for these out there. I have found these to be very common,but that could be on a county to county basis. DO NOT EAT ANY SHROOMS THAT YOU ARE NOT 100% CERTAIN OF THEIR SPECIES!! Also, Shroomery.org is an excellent source for all your shroom hunting needs.
Woods - Maybe not foraging exactly but thought I'd throw this in there. Sometimes finding large branches of certain wood types can be useful/profitable. Walnut and Persimmon in particular. Persimmon is actually a really hard wood sought after in the making of gold clubs. However, I mainly mean with the intended purpose of making knife handles, tool handles, homemade wooden carpenter mallet, homemade bow, drum sticks, guitar picks, ect..
I'll revamp and update this more later.. just wanted to get a god foundation down. Not really everything I wanted to put in here, and will clean it up a bit. Suggestions are welcome.. I'd like to compile a collective guide to foraging in the forest and how it can be useful/profitable. Someone out there is bound to find this information either useful, or possibly.. inspiring.
