Foraging Equipment
“Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” 1
- Henry David Thoreau
Table of Contents
The Bare Necessities
If you didn’t just end that title singing “…of life will come to you” in your head then you might not be mad enough.
The beauty of foraging is that you really don’t need anything to begin - just a healthy dose of common sense and a willingness to be curious. However, here’s my list of equipment I keep in my rucksack that goes pretty much everywhere with me.
Cotton Tote Bag
It scrunches up into nothing and allows the foraged material to breath and not sweat. I have a big knot in one of the handles which lets me easily hang it at my side by tucking the knot under my belt. Just be careful when kneeling/falling/sitting…more than once I’ve squished my prizes.
Folding Organiser Box from Ikea
This packs flat, is noticeably unnoticeably light and slides into the back of my rucksack. It’s really really useful - I haven’t seen anyone else use this… I should market this! It folds out and goes in my tote if I come across something a bit fragile, like fungi or berries. Plus it’s washable.
Knife & Scissors
Read through the information on UK knife law here.
I have a small pair of modified bonsai scissors always to hand. Their light, tough, cheap, legal (in the UK at least), and gets through most plant material. I rounded the tip so they don’t make a hole in me/my pocket/my rucksack, and added a few nicks to one blade before resharpening them. This allows these tiny snips to grip and cut larger material without them slip off.
When I’m working with the public, either leading foraging courses or giving talks I only take my tiny, legal knife. But when I’m outdoors in my own time, I do have a Leatherman multitool or pocket knife to hand. Useful for harvesting fungi, slicing precocious brambles and general odds and sods.
Extra
Most of the time I wander, so the above is all I have. However, if I’m on a more ‘dedicated’ foraging excursion, these are the extras I might pack.
Field Guides
Usually just Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain and Ireland - Blacks Nature Guides for fungi, but as a beginner I’d also recommend The Foragers Calendar or a wild flower field guide.
Camera
I was a professional photographer for many years, so it took me a while to accept my mobile phone as adequate - and it is. It’s always on silent so I don’t get the world encroaching on my time outdoors. Having a camera to hand, especially when starting is invaluable for recording and photographing your finds, and getting reference shots to help ID anything when your back home.
Paper Bags
Always useful for carrying smaller finds
Processing
There’s an innumerable list of items you might want to help dry, bottle, concoct, ferment etc. your finds. The most used and useful things I have are:
Drying Rack
I have one of these:
You can find them very cheaply online, they pack up into a tiny bag and makes moving things about really easy. Mine doesn’t usually get put away and always has some sort of plant matter or fungi on it in various stages of drying. If I have a large quantity to dry and it’s good weather (read: ’not raining or really damp’) - then I might hang it outside for the day to get an initial chunk of moisture out before hanging it back up in the conservatory. And to finish it off, I have a dehumidifier that I’ll pull out for a few hours if the relative humidity is a bit high.
Bottles, Jars and Tubs
Start saving your jars and bottles - they’re free, and make ideal airtight storage.
Walden; or, Life in the woods ↩︎