Ironwood Foraging Co.

Important to know. 2026 is the year of chewing and eating wood. Many animals do this and humans can benefit from it too.You already eat cinnamon, which is the bark of the cinnamon tree. And you likely go beaver mode at the end of a corn dog or popsicle. I know I do.
Chewing wood increases memory and cognitive function, significantly boosts glutathione levels (an important antioxidant), and has dental benefits such as removing plaque and decreasing cavity risk.

Eating wood can also be beneficial, especially the bark and softer new growth. Slippery Elm is one such edible bark that helps soothe the digestive system and and relieves sore throats (due to its mucilage content). I'll be diving into this more this year, but do you have experience eating wood? Let me know!

Join us to learn about plants, fungi, and everything else. We'll be leading the fungi and plant sessions. Important: when you sign-up make sure to note that you found this through Ironwood Foraging. Foragers need to be more visible allies. If I can point to data that shows how many foragers volunteer for BioBlitzes, invasive species removal, picking up trash, etc. then it's that much easier to get a seat at the table to protect foraging rights.

Gooseberries hold a special place in my heart. They're the first thing I ever ate from "outside". Growing in the landscaping of a corner house across from a playground I often played at, these green berries caught my eye. Being all of 7 years old, I didn't try to identify these before eating them and wouldn't know their name for another 16 years. Avoiding the thorns, I popped a berry in my mouth and was greeted with a delightful explosion of tart flavor. I don't know if anyone remembers the 90s and early 2000s, but ultra sour candy was a big fad. If people knew about gooseberries, there would have totally been a gooseberry-flavored hippie version less laden with chemicals and infused with borderline radioactive food dyes.
You can find gooseberries in forest understory, but they fruit best on forest edge where they can get sun. The berries ripen from hard/green>soft/green>maroon>black. They mix wonderfully with mulberries. I highly suggest planting gooseberries in your landscaping. You can find a high performing wild individual and propagate via cuttings, or find a high-yielding cultivar available in many garden centers. Maybe another future forager will happen upon them and make a friend for life.

Three beautiful White Bass (Morone chrysops) courtesy of our wonderful neighbors the Vangs. It's the best when you can gift maple syrup, mushrooms, garlic, fish, Hmong cucumbers, apples and more back and forth each year and in each season.

This was my first time fileting fish. I fked up 5 of the 6 filets, but the last one looked pretty good. I also fried up the egg sacks which were awesome and remind me exactly of Swedish potato sausage (Potatiskorv).

Hunting and angling, and the skills therein, have been a new focus of mine. Foraging has been the gateway for me into the more traditional areas of gardening, hunting, and angling. It's also been the gateway to meeting really cool people who have helped me do it such as the homies and

I hope you're all having a safe and rewarding foraging season. Make sure to protect yourself from ticks!

I was generously gifted this batch of ramps by my friend Leya Charles (co-founder of Minnesota Foraging Alliance).

Transplanting ramps to my backyard is a project now in its fifth year. My goal is to build up a ramp nursery that I can harvest from to plant elsewhere. Europe has ramsons, their species of ramps, which they manage as forest plantations and we have at least a couple small forests in the United States that are managed for ramps but nowhere near enough to meet demand.

I taught a class on Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) three years ago at the University of Minnesota and I think managing for edible native species of plants and fungi could really be an economic boon to woodlot owners, seasonal outdoor workers, and especially post-industrial areas in general which are so often forgotten about in the national conversation. Not everything should be reduced to bare economics, but so often the nature-loving space wants to pretend like money or budgeting isn't a factor in the protection of our public lands when it deeply is. That often makes us a really weak coalition with very little pull. Therefore, the places we love are equally weakly protected. It's a big reason why the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is under constant pressure from mining companies and why the DNR just turned a State Park back into a mine haha.

Beyond the economics, a greater focus on native species as NTFPs would lead to more native plant habitat, more robust species, better invasive species management innovation, and more representation of native species in our national diet. What's not to love.

Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum var. latiusculum) is an excellent edible fern native to Minnesota. Claimed by some to be the most common plant in the world, it makes sense that people all over the world also eat Bracken 🌿

While there have been studies that cast doubt on the edibility of Bracken, one should always read the methodology section of research articles and decide if you think their methods make sense. Wild food that is eaten in its narrow season of edibility and prepared appropriately, often with traditional methods, has an extremely low chance of causing you harm. Especially compared to all the modern packaged foods you eat that have been dubiously stored, transported, and prepared by people you don't know.

Either way, Bracken is delicious when prepared in the Hmong (bright and spicy) or Korean (salty and garlicky) styles, to name just two. How do you prepare your Bracken? Would you try it?

The spring wildflower harvest was beautiful this year. These delicate flavors and aromas are an immense generosity shown to us by the world. Some of them are also really nice to eat.

Free Foraging Event!
Join Ironwood Foraging at Rockford Library for an educational foraging and plant identification walk.
When: Friday, June 26, 2026 2:00PM-3:30PM
Where: Rockford Library 6401 42nd Ave. N. Crystal, MN 55427
Who: All are invited, but you must register🌿
Space is limited and this will fill up quickly!

This is a warm reminder to do your weekly plant walk to see how the plants around your home or at the park are developing. Following plants weekly throughout the season helps develop your identification abilities, is good exercise for the mind and soul, and you'll forge a stronger bond with the individual plants along your route.
Bonus tip for reading this far: If you're in Minnesota, the black locust flowers are out.

Lambsquarters (Chenopodium) are reaching their spring peak in your vegetable gardens right now in Minnesota. If you want to eat the tender greens, now is the best time. They can be eaten raw, in salad, stewed, stir-fried (my favorite), or steamed. They're very nutritious and contain high levels of potassium (K), manganese (Mn), and copper (Cu), and moderate levels of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), sodium (Na), and zinc (Zn) with high quantities of plant protein.
They also taste great and make weeding the garden a lot more rewarding since you'll technically be harvesting one of your earliest crops.