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Rain pelts the back of her blue raincoat as she gingerly brushes past brambles of wetland prairie. Pausing by a tall Aronia bush, she gently plucks a stem of berries in search for something sweet to taste.
“These suckers are also known as Chokeberries; they have tons of antioxidants. Kinda reminds me of blueberries!”
She gathers the small, deep-purple bundle. Plump and sweet, they dribble juice down her chin as she spits out the seeds and cracks a toothy grin.
Marcia Miller is a private landowner in the rural suburbs surrounding the west side of Columbus. Her partner, Kevin, had purchased the initial hundred-and-fifty acres for organic agriculture operations.
“We grow pretty much everything we eat.”
She leans over to pick another plant, a sprig of fragrant mountain mint this time. She rolls it gently between her palms, crushing the leaves to evict aromatic oils.
They are currently working with the Ohio DNR through conservation easements toward the process of rewilding the land and transitioning their property from farmland to restored native ecosystems. However, Marcia still maintains these landscapes, her greenhouses, and the expansive garden plots that provide a decorative border surrounding her house.
These gardens are quite unique though, as they are almost completely wild. Everything that Marcia cultivates and cares for is native and meant to be a part of the land. With a little landscaping, her yard sprawls with growth.
“Everything we plant is something that belongs here, something that existed before white people came in and ruined everything.”
Wet and vibrant with rain, bushes, flowers, and trees stretch freely with inorganic movement across the front walkway and entrance to the house. While they may be aesthetically beautiful, these wild gardens also have a purpose. Many of the plants she grows are specifically balancing for both humans and the land.
“A lot of this stuff is really good for you, like this,” Marcia kneels in front of a yellowing bush of St John’s Wort and lightly tugs on one of its branches. “This is often used for things like anxiety and depression. I like to just keep it on the land so it can put out its vibe!”
She has intentionally crafted these wild gardens to promote native ecosystems while in tandem, cultivating a broad spectrum of forgeable foods, many of which she collects to eat and cook with.
“This here is Black Cohosh,” She points to another leafy plant close by. “It’s an important healing herb for womens endocrine system. You could make a tea or something out of this. It tastes fine, kinda bitter.”
“This isn’t necessarily wild foraging, but my garden is pretty wild, I guess!”
The act of foraging is often attributed to tromping around forested parks or wilderness areas to seek out wild food. It is not regularly considered or accepted by the public how these edible plants could naturally occur within one’s own back yard.
Just because Marcia has intentionally situated these plants around her garden does not discredit their forgeability. Growing an edible landscape is an easy and accessible way to collect unique foods. This wild garden, as well as the addition of forested property, make Marcia’s land a forager’s paradise full of edible fruits, nuts, seeds, and herbs. Even better yet, it can all be found a few steps away from her front door.
“Every year it’s something different, we don’t quite know exactly what we’re going to get, which is all a part of the fun!”
In addition, the use of native wild gardens close to her house serves as a visual clock, alerting Marcia when food might be ready to collect from various spots around her property.
“I planted this hazelnut tree a few years ago, when it starts to fruit over here, I know when to go out and search for more over in the woods. Look at these nuts, there they are with that spikey green husk. Aren’t they bizarre?”
Equitably harvesting around her land throughout the year ensures the promotion of productive and attractive native ecosystems that are food sources supporting both herself and local wildlife.
“We see lots of birds and pollinators over here, I like to keep my binoculars at my desk to see what everyone’s up to.”
The rain has subsided into a misty haze, lightly distorting her vision as she continues to move around the side of the house, meticulously stepping on stone pavers in between garden sections. A wooden trellis clings to the back wall, barely visible, supporting a very full and winding green vine, trailing with squiggly purple flowers.
“Maypop!”
Her long fingers reach, tangling slightly in the vines before plucking out a perfectly round fruit. Plump and green, she digs her thumbs into the middle, puncturing the fruit with a tiny pop from the outer casing. A gooey mess of seeds drip down her hands.
“A slimy wonder! They’re sorta sour, and weird as hell. Grow like crazy on my vine here too,” she motions upwards and takes a slurp of seeds. She swishes sweet yellow flesh around in her mouth before discretely spitting out the seeds.
“They’re a native passionfruit! The bees really love these flowers, they like to sleep all snuggled up under the stamen.”
She tosses the empty green casing back into the wild garden and moves across the grass. The saturated ground squelches underneath her heavy rain boots. She begins to walk away from the house, moving through thickets of yellowing prairie meadowland once again. Crickets chirp and buzz, jumping from under her feet with each step.
“Back here is where the wetland starts,” she points toward a patch of hardwood forest on the far side of the property marking where their easement land begins. This legal designation of protected land ensures that this segment of wetland will always be preserved as a natural ecosystem, safe from the impeding threats of future development.
She steadily makes her way across the restored landscape, fragile with budding growth. This portion of land is a fairly new prairie, having been burned five years prior in a controlled restoration management cycle.
“Kevin says I’m a bit of a pyromaniac, but the fire is really good for the land. We’ve done controlled burns on a couple plots. Chokes out invasives and makes sure nutrient cycles are up and running. It even helps some plants germinate,” she runs the palms of her hands down by her sides, brushing past knee-high drying grasses and shrubs as she reaches the forest edge.
“They planted a lot of these bigger trees by hand. Kevin and his kids used to stomp all kinds of walnuts and things into the ground… and voila! There’s some pawpaws over there too, so many that I honestly start to get sick of them.”
Another break in the forest appears, opening up to the expansive wetland ecosystem. Darkening clouds loom in the distance, thick and heavy with rain.
“Thi
A small grove of about twelve mature trees stick up out of the moist hydric soil. They populate a seemingly straight line, each new tree popping up next through the ground, growing through a mycelial connection of root systems.
“Now these here are a real treat,” she brushes past gangly branches to reach precious orange fruits. The persimmons hang like jewels, plump and perfectly ripe.
“You want them to be really soft, if they’re not soft they’re gross. They fall from the branches when they’re ready.”
She plucks a few fruits from the ground and places them gingerly in a large Tupperware bowl. She tears off the floral-shaped stem and brushes off a few specks of wet dirt before taking a bite, pausing to savor and chew.
“They’re perfect. So jammy and sweet,” with a mouthful of fruit, she spits out a couple of large black seeds. “Mmm!”
“I spit out all these seeds to help them disperse. I like to think how I help the plants by eating their yummy fruits!”
Typically, the persimmons aren’t this ripe until the first frost. In late September, they should still be hanging on the branches, firm and “gross”. Warming climate trends have sped up their maturation processes causing rapid ripening patterns through the years. Careful not to step on any, Marcia continues to collect fallen persimmons from the forest floor, weaving between the line of trees.
“I always leave a few for the little critters around here, but I want to collect enough to freeze. They make a great pudding or ice cream! Most Americans have never tried these. They’re such a unique fruit.”
Wind gusts through her hair as she pulls the hood of her raincoat back over her head. She situates the persimmon-filled Tupperware container on her hip and begins to walk back through the meadow toward the house. Rain beads the back of her blue raincoat as she moves through the wild garden.
Benson Lindsey and Sarah Alexopoulos, who goes by “Xop,” are a couple who reside alongside Glenn Echo Ravine in the center of Columbus, Ohio. They are both skilled and passionate naturalists, foragers, and gardeners who enjoy sharing their knowledge and experiences with others in nature.
They seasonally forage a variety of different foods that range from herbs, fruits, nuts, seeds, and fungi. To search for these edibles, they explore creative and unconventional locations that include urban parks, public recreation spaces, neighborhoods, alleyways, and abandoned lots.
Collecting and preparing foraged foods to incorporate into everyday cooking is also something that they take pleasure and pride in.
In this mini documentary, follow along as Benson and Xop share foraging strategies and methods while exploring their urban Columbus neighborhood.
Duke is a skilled culinary professional and the owner of South of Lane Cafe, a popular brunch restaurant in Columbus Ohio. He has always had a passion for cooking and enjoys challenging himself with new and thoughtful recipe combinations.
Joey is a creative chef and sustainable agriculture farmer. He has previously facilitated his own operation, Bug Run Farm, outside of Columbus, which cultivated a variety of unique produce types many of which were distributed to farm markets.
Easily forgeable in mid-September through early October, pawpaws are a tropical-tasting fruit native to the Eastern United States. They are often difficult to find in stores because of their relatively short season, making them a special fall treat! I have invited Duke and Joey over to the Denison Homestead, where I live, to create an edible dish with freshly foraged pawpaws.
In this audio story, Duke and Joey bake a pawpaw tart on the Homestead’s wood-burning stove.
As an Environmental Studies Student, I have always had a passion for exploring the natural world. However, foraging was never really something that I had previously considered. Growing up in the suburbs of Columbus I was well acquainted with wild raspberry bushes, and my mom had a few hearty tomatoes as well as a windowsill basil plant, but even still, I had never understood the other possible edible landscapes surrounding my home extending beyond conventional garden plants.
Since being away at college, I have had the privilege to live at the Denison Homestead, an intentional student-run sustainable living community (yes, basically a commune), where I have acquired an even deeper passion for learning and living alongside nature. Being here has allowed me to have opportunities to tend for our garden as well as our indoor greenhouse in cabin Phoenix. These activities have allowed me to become more connected to cultivating my own food, and cooking it too! I have also had a lot of technology-free time on my hands, which perpetuated a phase of reading for fun.
My aunt Marcey, a horticulturist, gifted me a pocket guide on backyard foraging for my birthday several years ago and I never had the opportunity to sit down to read and interpret the book until coming to the ‘Stead. This book inspired my multimedia project, and I would first and foremost like to thank her for sparking this interest!
I would also like to thank my professor, Doug Swift, for supporting me in crafting this project. It would not have been possible without his expertise. Doug also connected me with Marcia, for which I am so thankful. Her hospitality and generosity were very appreciated. I learned so much from the time I was able to spend with her, and she so graciously let me taste everything!
Duke and Joey are dear friends, and I am filled with gratitude for their excitement to bake a creatively unconventional recipe at such an especially unconventional venue. They also connected me with Benson and Xop, another amazing pair from whom I learned so much from. Their ecological knowledge and pure passion for foraging truly made this project possible.
Thank you all for your commitment to this project and for your unique and incredible contributions!
It has been a wonderful experience to create this project. I have genuinely had so much fun throughout this entire process while in tandem learning about many new and interesting things.