Peter Langlands has been foraging since he was a child. Photo: Penguin Books New Zealand
Turning fruit blossoms into syrups, adding wilted dandelions to salads, sourcing and drying out seaweed and finding that very first mushroom of the season - thrills for an avid forager like Peter Langlands.
Langlands is a well known photographer, researcher and writer who specialises in freshwater and marine issues. He's also an expert wild foods forager, a skill he has been cultivating since he was a kid. He shares his tips with RNZ's Thrift podcast.
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Where to look?
Damp areas can yield good foraging, like river edges and springs and creeks, and look for spots where there is diverse plant life.
"If it's nice and damp around the tree, the tree creates its own sort of micro climate," Langlands explains.
Cultural diversity also brings a range of foods to forage - where there's a variety of different things people may have planted in the past.
"It is also worth checking out places where people have settled in the past, areas where you might have had gold miners, loggers, different types of farming. Where there's been a diversity of people in the landscape, is where we'll find a lot of good foraging," he says.
However, if you're not certain of how the land was used historically, it's best to avoid potential pollution.
"A lot of flat areas of ground could possibly be historic landfill sites, also avoiding anywhere close to industrial areas where landfill may have been dumped.
"[And] busy road margins in areas where there's lots of regular spraying are probably best avoided."
And don't go onto private property unless you have permission. Any fruit hanging over a fence into a public space still belongs to the tree's owner.
How to get better
It's crucial to be schooled up in what's edible and what is not. It's a good idea to go with someone who's experienced as you build your foraging skills. Learn two or three different plants a week and your knowledge will build, Langlands suggests.
Learn what different plants look like in different stages of growth, so you can distinguish between them and other similar plants. Also learn where a particular plant grows - if you think you found it outside that habitat it could be a red flag that the plant is not what you think it is.
If you aren't sure what you've found there are some useful online resources. Langlands recommends iNaturalist - a crowd sourced system for identifying things. But if you're in any doubt about something and you haven't been able to absolutely verify it, leave it behind.
When you head out foraging, bring some storage containers and pack a chilly bin in the car with an ice pack to keep your finds fresh. But only take as much as you need, share the bounty with others.
"Just keeping it sensible, really, to what you're going to use in the near future," Langlands explains.
A lot of foraging groups try to stick to a rule of thirds - take a third for yourself, leave another third for others and leave the remainder so the tree or plant can regenerate.
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