A Foray into Foraging: Part 2, Sidewalk Herbs & Flowers

This is the second part of my foray into foraging.

 Within a minute of strolling into this suburb in the city we came upon a massive swath of sage, planted on a street corner.

The sage had taken over a good 3'x3' feet of space. It was clear that someone had let it grow on purpose.

The last time we’d gone foraging, we also encountered another herb, mint.

Unlike the dried stuff at the store, living herbs give you such a strong kick of smell that makes them easy to identify. Hold up one leaf to your nose and you know immediately that it’s mint. It’s impossible to mistake.

What astonished us most, though, was that someone had been turning these public spaces into herb gardens. I’m grateful that someone took time and dedication to grow what are essentially public herbs, which would otherwise cost quite a bit at the supermarket. Not to mention that it’s the most logical idea, for herbs make the best cover crops (crops that easily and quickly spread over the ground of your garden, protecting against “weeds” and nourishing the soil). Though they need a fair amount of light, oregano, mint, and sage grow rapidly and well.

Who could say no to a free, fresh herb picked straight from the sidewalk? Fortunately for us, we could see some black seeds in the seedpods as well, which we took to plant at home:

The picture is blurry in the wrong spot, but you get the idea.

Another easily recognizable plant, familiar to you, I’m sure, from any picture, greeted us nearly every block.

That’s right: the almighty sunflower.

Every other block, we encountered seemingly endless varieties of this ubiquitous fan favorite, many of them with black and brown seeds ready for the picking. 

Here’s the classic sunflower seed:

Sunflower seed heads poking out from behind a utility pole. You can see the huge public garden farther away in the picture, behind the red car.

Opening one of them up, you can see the seeds inside, which look exactly like the store-bought snacks: 

Some of these sunflowers stood taller than me.

The 'Market Basket' reusable bag, which says that it's usable up to 125 times, and a pair of purple 'Amazon Basics' scissors, were used for this harvest. 'Market Basket' is a weird grocery store local to this area that almost always has 1,000 people in it. Yes, shopping cart traffic jams are a thing.

I had no idea there were so many different types of sunflowers.

As we walked through the lush greenways of this suburb, sunflowers weren’t the only bright, flowers that caught our attention again and again. Everywhere, it seemed, there were white daisies, attracting hordes of honeybees.

"What? I got here first." "No, you didn't." "Yes, I did!" 

A painted lady butterfly even posed specially for us.

"Alright, bees, you're just backup dancers. Now kindly step out of my picture."

And some of the flowers were just pretty, such as this lady’s slipper:

"Oh! Where is the foot I came from? Prince Charming, run faster!" 

We were also on the watch for vining plants, which I’ve long wanted so that I could make some sort of trellis (or at least make the existing porch and balcony look nicer).

Ideally, I would plant a vine that also produced edible fruit, such as a grape vine. But morning glory, which grows rapidly, does a fine job of adding a pop of color to an otherwise gray street:

After turning right along a block after some construction, we were greeted by what looked like piles and piles of dense chives along the front yard of one house.

The leaves looked just like those of a type of vegetable called the jiu cai, or Chinese chive. 

A bite immediately confirmed that the herb was wild garlic, which tastes pretty similar to chives and should be used in the same way.

We snipped off a handful of the garlic leaves, and though we could have taken more, we wanted to leave a bit in case another forager wanted some. Plus, it was someone’s yard, and we couldn’t tell whether they’d grown it on purpose. We also grabbed a handful of seed in case we wanted to plant it ourselves. 

Because wild garlic spreads quickly, and I’m not sure if it’s considered a “nuisance’ or whatever in the States, I’ll have to look up more details about it before I start to plant it.

Who knew there were so many herbs, wildflower gardens, and beautiful tiny forests, if you went looking?