California Foraging

"This book is an excellent deep dive into California's wild edibles, revealing a real affection for and intimate familiarity with our state's flora." -Iso Rabins, founder of ForageSF



California offers a veritable feast for foragers, and with Judith Larner Lowry as your trusted guide you will learn how to safely find and identify an abundance of delicious wild plants. The plant profiles in California Foraging include clear, color photographs, identification tips, guidance on how to ethically harvest, and suggestions for eating and preserving. A handy seasonal planner details which plants are available during every season. Thorough, comprehensive, and safe, this is a must-have for foragers in the Golden State. Part of the Timber Press Regional Foraging book series, this is for foragers in the diverse climates of California. 
Judith Larner Lowry has been the proprietor of Larner Seeds, specializing in California native plants and seeds, for the last 35 years. Lowry designs and plants native plant gardens, gives talks, and contributes to Orion magazine, BayNature magazine, and numerous other journals. She lives with her husband in Bolinas, California. Preface

One foggy summer day near the coast, I discovered an unexpected treasure trove of California hazelnut bushes. They were loaded with sweet, mild nuts that were ripe and ready to eat. I found a comfortable place to sit, a rock to crack the shells, and settled in for a session of hazelnut appreciation. To other hikers on the trail, I was hidden from view by the hazel's leafy branches. 

    

Soon, I heard two parents cajoling their children onward up the trail. The children sounded tired and complained about being hungry and bored. I thought momentarily of having them join me in my cozy fort under the hazel and sharing the bounty. 

    

While I considered it, they disappeared up the path. Maybe I should have called out to them: There is delicious food here. Come join me. 



I didn't then, but I am calling out to you now. There is delicious food all around us. 



Two unexpected strands have come together during the writing of this book. One, an even greater deepening of my appreciation for California's native flora, I expected and welcomed. The other strand has taken me by surprise.

    

For most of my adult life, I have been an advocate for California's native plants. At my mail-order native plant seed and nursery business, we specialize in growing seed crops of native wildflowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees, some of them threatened with local extinction. 

    

Through the years, my realization that many of these native plants are also food has felt like startling new information about old friends I thought I knew well. I first started to value California's native plants for their drought tolerance and appropriateness to California's climate and soils. Then they became a crucial part of my developing and deepening sense of home in the Golden State, and I wanted to live surrounded by them. Their importance as habitat for native bees, butterflies, birds, and other creatures added yet another layer to my appreciation of the grounding details of sharing life with the plants that evolved here. 

    

Early on, I learned that many of the seeds we gathered from the wild were grain crops for California Indians. The wildflower meadows that drew me with their beauty represented to many native peoples a harvest of healthful seed foods, produced with no added fertilizer, pesticides, water, or plowing. That's how the journey of this book began, with the seeds.



When I hear people talk about the importance and value of diversified sustainable farming operations, I look at the wildlands and think about what a diversified sustainable farming operation they already are. Or once were, and could be again.

    

At our seed-growing garden, I proclaimed a zero-tolerance policy for weeds, t