forage -verb; (of a person or animal) search widely for food or provisions
Foraging in our little food forest has been a revealing experience this year! Time spent in this Walden-esque woods once in a while has been like hitting the 'refresh' button! It's become one of those activities that I look forward to and has prodded me to explore more about the concept of 'food forest' and be intentional about food habits.
What is a food forest? A food forest is a gardening technique or land management system, which mimics a woodland ecosystem by substituting edible trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Fruit and nut trees make up the upper level, while berry shrubs, edible perennials and annuals make up the lower levels. Also known as 'forest gardening'!
It's been a zero-maintenance forest garden - with minimal or no effort taken manually to plant and harvest as you would in a regular farm/garden. Since we don't stay on this piece of land, we visit occasionally to forage.
Here's a photo essay of various collections from this year!
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| Tamarind( Tamarindus Indica) - just before summer, the fruits fall off and all we do is walk around and collect them. From just 3 trees we gather enough to use all year round! |
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| Kanthari mulaku(wild chilli) is super hot! We get a year long supply from a few patches of mini chilli forest spread across the woods! |
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| Mangoes are our all time summer favorite! And we do climb up trees or use bamboo poles to bring down some, while leaving enough for some guests! |
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| And we have someone whose favorite is the mango season too - the Indian Giant Squirrel! Seeing them reminds us that we are the guests in their home and not the other way round. |
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| The humbling jack fruits are in plenty too! It's difficult to climb up the tree to bring one down, but season time ensures there's enough for everyone on the tree - the birds, the animals. And the fruits are big enough that some half eaten fall off and is still provides us a huge edible portion! |
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| The cashew trees drop the ripe fruits once a year. The birds and bats love the juicy fruit part, while dispersing the nuts on the forest floor for us to collect! We sometimes see the hard shells of the nuts bit open and consumed - possibly porcupines or other rodents said someone. |
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| Pepper vines! Black pepper is a staple in our diets and these fetch a good price in the wholesale market too. However we don't 'cultivate it enough to sell and these vines have grown wild latching on to the trees for long now. We gather enough once a year as the ripe berries turn red and fall to the ground. |
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| Turmeric! This one we need to dig up when it's ready. Some back breaking work as there are patches of them spread across the woods. We haven't planted them at all - probably the previous owner cultivated it. Each year as we dig up as much as we want. Some parts get left behind and re-grow continually, thanks to the rains and the forest floor mulched with thick layers of dried leaves replenishing the soil! |
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| Manjadi Kuru - the lucky red seeds. While we don't use it as food, it is a great nitrogen-fixing tree, Adenanthera pavonina! The little red seeds are a favorite among children who use it to play(all the games children only can invent). It's a beautiful sight seeing the bright red spots across the forest floor among the brown dried leaves. |
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| Another tree that is a sight to watch is the 'white silk cotton tree' - Ceiba pentandra. The trees grow to be huge! And the seed pods break open when ripe to let the white silk like cotton cover the ground. Looks like snow from afar! They were commonly used to fill in pillows and mattresses - and still is i guess! |
