I see Foraging & Gardening as the same activity/relationship with plants you love, just on different spectrum of the relationship. I also wonder where conservation falls on this chart?
As a Gardener I want to conserve the plants I love by saving seed to replant them again
As a Forager I want to conserve, encoruage & protect the wild plants that feed me.
I can’t help but notice the similarities between all 3, they can all be the same person!
Not all gardeners are on the same page as conservationists. In gardening-related forums, you are likely to see a lot of questions to the effect of “How do I get rid of ______?” Fill in the blank with whatever is inconveniencing or perceived to be competing with the gardener. Gettting rid, getting rid, getting rid – sometimes it seems like that is the extent of gardeners’ relationship with nature: getting rid of it.
What is eating my plant gets a different response on iNat to other social media. I see the neat evidence of leafcutter bees on my rose leaves. Would love to see the bee in action … I could observe the leaf as Evidence of?
Protecting plants because YOU are going to eat them is farming. Not gardening, or conservation.
Yes, I remind myself of this a lot. My bed of native plants is forever plagued by voles, but I have to tell myself that I grow the native plants to support native wildlife. The voles are native wildlife lol. They’re also real dang cute when they come out.
You have gardeners who are at war with nature, and you have gardeners who plant extra lettuce for the slugs . . . it’s all over the map.
I’ve been eating an all-beef diet for 8 years. Should we do rewilding and recreate a herd of millions of bison in North America? These questions are above my pay grade
I read an interesting article about the benifits of reintroduced bison heards in the Nature Conservancy magazine a while ago. I don’t remember the details anymore, but it’s considered a keystone species. Just by doing their thing in the landscape, they have a domino effect that can rejuvenate the local environment.
What if we save the seeds of the plants that feed us?
I was just thinking Gardeners Save seeds, Foragers Save Seeds & Conservationist Save seeds too! I just figured each likes to preserve what they love or is valuable to them, but maybe that’s just me (I hope it isn’t tho).
Foraging is applicable only if a person has access to a wild place or public land. I’m at a very urban tropical island. Accessible feral land have become a lot lesser. There used to be guava trees around with small to medium size fruits. People plant mulberry cuttings for the leaves. There used to be coconut trees. Foreign migrants may take the heart of palm of young coconut trees. There is a problem of lethal yellow virus. When I’m free, will try to shift some coconuts around. People may take jackfruit sometimes. Jackfruits are prone to fruit fly or beetle infestation. Locals don’t harvest from the wild these days. Some expats may because there is a trend of ‘foraging’ in the internet. The young fruits need to be bagged. Jackfruits has a problem of being heaty similar to durian. People love foraging for durians in old plantation land. The wild forms of the jackfruit and durians are very small fruits. Example, Atrocarpus rigidus. I heard it may be edible but it is really small in size. If someone is a forager who is in survival mode, he may want a good size jackfruit variety. Conservationists want the primitive Atrocarpus which the squirrels and birds feed on. Maybe I’ll get a breadfruit tree. The problem is where do I plant it. Breadfruit is planted from root cuttings. I’ve a soursop, and Clerodendrum paniculatum at a discreet place. It is for the butterflies and some compost experiments. Gardeners need to know the soil and how compost can make plants grow. Gardeners plant everything, kale, or some exotic flowers, seeds bought online or from the garden centers. Conservationist is a job. That is the jobs of scientists to identify obscure plants species deep in the forest. They put the native plants back into some parts of the nature reserves.
Heritage varieties in the place where they are heritage - I agree with you ALL the way. I remember sad stories about people fleeing extreme weather along the Gulf of Mexico (forgive my USA geography for which episode it was). They left their heritage seeds behind. Now that resource is gone forever. So ‘easy’ to push the shiny new trademarked varieties, and force subsistence farmers to abandon
this for the dry field
that for field that is always damp near the stream
that taller variety to underplant a lower and later crop
Yeah, “preserving what they love”. Sure, there are tons of environment-minded gardeners (obviously), but a lot of them are all like, “let’s spray herbicide, pesticide, whatever -cide we need to kill everything that isn’t part of this monoculture of species X”. That really isn’t exactly what conservationists and most foragers want, and I just feel that many, if not most, gardeners would turn their sword against the other two here instead of forming an alliance around the round table.
At least that’s what I think.
Someone in Cape Town is encouraging foragers to eat the (edible) invasive aliens / cosmopolitan weeds. That is a win win. But foraging in wild places … seems to me like taking habitat from nature - nothing to do with conservation. Or gardening, if you didn’t ‘plant that in your space’.
Maybe. I understand not wanting to waste anything, but that has the potential for someone to decide they like it and want to keep growing it rather than eradicating.
Well, it’s just like whatever wild animals forage for food there - but humans can lobby for protection of those wild spaces.
When done with some restraint, foraging can be and is a good thing for nature.
If you grow it in your garden as a food crop - it ultimately has a smaller environmental footprint than the usual fruit and veg - which are almost all exotic to where they are grown, need irrigation, fertiliser, assorted agri-chemicals.
@oksanaetal wild animals in habitat versus a city of people? That is why we have a problem with bark stripping of indigenous trees in the pockets of forest around Cape Town. Traditional medicinal use for a small rural community is not the same sustainability issue in a large city. Difficult to find the right way forward.
In addition, while gardeners and foragers are not necessarily conservationists (and indeed are often antagonistic to conservation) one can lead into the other. I started out as a forager, and through iNaturalist became more interested in conservation. My natural thought process has changed from seeing a plant and immediately thinking “Can I eat it? Is it useful?” to instead thinking “What is its ecological role? Is it protected?” I still forage, but how I forage and approach nature is dramatically different.
I wonder why it’s so easy? How is it forced apon them, via patents? I’d love to preserve those landraces/heirlooms for future generations.
Some conservationist also support using herbicides to spray/kill plants, they justify their destructive actions by claiming they’re “helping the environment” by killing an “Invasive species”. Herbicide use is an unintentional Selective Pressue, it selects for herbicide resistant plants, it’s what happen with Amaranths.
I don’t ever want to use herbicides/pesticides as they are band-aid solutions that don’t address the root of the issue (+ not to forget all the other ecosystem problems caused by herbicide/pesticide use). I think the key is better genetics, health & balance with the ecosystem. This is partially a reason I’m motivated to domesticate wild edibles & Rewild Domesticated crops, to eliminate the need for herbicides.
Polycultures over Monocultures always, I love Diversity because it’s a strength!
I agree! Problem is when the “Invasive” has been sprayed & no body told you . You have to guess or know your area well as I don’t want to poison myself.
I forage in a different way, I thank the plants that fed me by planting their seeds In ideal locations. To me conserving these wild edibles & their habitat is important.
I save seeds as insurance just incase their habitat gets destroyed for construction, this is what I did with Albino Black Raspberries of which are no longer there.
Foraging, Gardening & Conservation are different aspects of the same core activity, bonding with nature. I Forage, Garden & Conserve what I love.
That’s me! Every plant that feeds me, taste good I want more of! Wineberry, Spicebush, mulberry, Sweet Cicely, Black Raspberries are all excellent examples. I don’t want to eradicate what I love, I want to conserve it.
I agree, and the more you plant/spread the less restraint you have to do because of the abundance you’ve helped facilitate.
This is what motivates me landrace/rewild domesticated crops. All of them have adapted to Herbicide, constant irrigation, high fertilizer inputs. It’s absolutely possible to breed locally adapted diverse landrace seeds for your ecosystem. They don’t need herbicides or many inputs cuz they have adapted to your ecosystem, climate, soils, pests, ect.
This is what I want to do with Squash, Beans, Melons, Tomatoes, Peppers, Kale, & much more. I want to make them grow like weeds.
Nice! I started out similarly, 1st a forager, 2nd gardening, 3rd plant breeding & finally a conservationist. All of these connect & make you stronger in each.
My foraging skills makes me a better gardener which makes me a better conservationist which in makes me a better plant breeder.
You’re not a conservationist. Conservation is about preserving or rejuvinating the environment with what would be present in nature before human intervention. What you’re doing is finding stuff that YOU like, and that benifits YOU, not the natural environment. You are working against the conservationists who spend decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars to undo the damage we have done, including from the very thing you are doing.
I know I’m not qualified to decide what kind of hybrids or introduced species would be fine. That’s why, for things that I intend to thrive and propagate, I strictly choose only native species. I’ve also identified several non natives that I intend to eventually remove and replace with more natives.
. You have to guess or know your area well as I don’t want to poison myself.