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Michigan Gardener | April 2022 | www.MichiganGardener.com
Foraging in your backyard M
any people have asked themselves, “Can I eat these delicious-looking honeysuckle berries?” The answer is absolutely not. When foraging in the wild, or even at home, you have to be careful of the many delectablelooking fruits that can cause ailments ranging from a simple stomach ache to cardiac arrest. Foraging is no joke, but when educated on the right things to eat, you can open up a new range of flavors and native treasures. There are lots of things that are edible and waiting to be munched on in your garden. Here are some commonly foraged plants, as well as a couple to stay away from.
Tasty trees When wandering in the garden from mid to late summer, one of the best things to try is a kousa dogwood berry (Cornus kousa). There is nothing more exciting than picking a bright red berry from this classic landscape tree and taking a bite. They mature in the late summer and have a mango-banana flavor (Photo 1). The cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) is another dogwood that is a well-loved ornamental tree. It produces long “cherries” that are very tart (Photo 2).
Emily Edwards
2 Cornelian cherry
1 Kousa dogwood
3 Black walnut before the citrusy skin has been peeled off.
4 iNaturalist.org
Bean pods of the Kentucky coffee tree.
