Fall Foraging in Wisconsin

Fall is a great time for foraging in Wisconsin! There are a lot of naturally growing plant species out in Mother Nature’s garden just waiting to be discovered and harvested this fall season.

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Each fall, our family heads out to the woods to see what we can harvest from Mother Nature. Yes, we have a lot of food from our garden that has been keeping us very busy with preservation. But there is still a chunk of our family’s winter food supply that comes directly from the Earth, too. The food we’re able to forage is essentially free- all it takes is our time for harvesting and preserving. There was no laborious evenings of weeding or caring for the plants; they grew there on their own naturally. That’s really quite amazing!

Wisconsin is filled with wonderful edible native plants, many of which are perfect for fall foraging. In this post, I’ll share some of the easiest, delicious, and most abundant wild edibles to identify and enjoy this fall season.

Wild Apples

A wild apple found foraging in fall in Wisconsin

Wild apples are probably one of our favorite things when it comes to fall foraging in Wisconsin. In fact, we forage enough apples to feed our family for the entire winter season! Our primary use for the apples that we forage for is to make applesauce. Then, we turn the apple scraps into jelly after that. All of the applesauce our family consumes comes entirely from fall foraging in Wisconsin for apples!

What to look for when foraging for wild apples

Apple trees are easy to spot with their raggedy bark and abundance of apples. Apples can come in a variety of appearances; some are large, some small. They may be green with red spotted on them, all red, or all green. Most wild apple varieties I’ve come across are green with some red on them.

Some wild apples are going to taste better than others. Some can get mealy and some wormy. Other apples are bitter instead of sweet. The best way to know how the apples are is to taste test them! Take a small bite and decide if it’s an apple flavor that you’ll enjoy.

You’ll also want to make sure that the apples are ripe before you pick them. To do this, simply cut the apple open and check the seeds. If the seeds are brown, the apple is done ripening! White seeds mean it needs more time.

Wild apples ready for foraging in fall in Wisconsin

Where to find wild apples

Wild apple trees often grow in ditches and fence lines along old farm field and homes. My grandpa, who has probably 25 wild apple trees growing on his property, said all of the apple trees there grew from the “old timers” throwing their apples out while they worked in the field. How cool is that?!

Take a nice fall drive down some old country roads and see if you can find a wild apple tree. It’s always polite and good practice to ask permission to pick apples off of someone’s property, even if it is legal to pick in the ditches. You never know who else might be depending on those apples, too!

Wild Plums

Wild plums are an interesting and exciting flavor to add to your list of foods for fall foraging in Wisconsin. The flesh of a wild plum is often tart but sweet; however, the skin/peel is extremely sour and sometimes bitter. We love wild plums for fall foraging in Wisconsin because they make a very unique jelly. They’re also a sweet little snack if you pull the flesh out of the skin with your teeth, then spit out the pit (kind of like you’d eat boiled sugar snap peas).

What to look for when foraging for wild plums

Wild plum trees are often a shrubby-type tree that resemble black and choke cherry trees. The best indicator that you’ve found a wild plum tree is the presence of bright coral and deep red colored plums! These plums are going to be a lot smaller than the plums you’d buy in the store, and are more oval shaped than round. Keep this in mind as you’re fall foraging in Wisconsin for wild plums!

Where to look for wild plums

Wild plums like to grow under telephone wires and field edges along country roads. To find them, it’s another great opportunity for a beautiful fall drive out in the country.

Blackberries

Wild blackberries are one of my all time favorite foods. In fact, when I was little, I once at so many in one sitting that I ended up making myself sick! I don’t regret it, and totally understand how that happened…because I may have done that again as an adult, too! They’re just so incredibly sweet and delicious, it makes them hard to stop eating!

Blackberries can be eaten fresh or preserved in jams or jellies. We like to freeze ours on a cookie sheet, then store them in a freezer bag to add to oatmeal and other baked goods during the winter months.

What to look for when foraging for wild blackberries

When fall foraging in Wisconsin for wild blackberries, you’ll want to look for brambles of bushes growing together covered with berries. The bushes are extremely sharp and pokey, so it’s best to wear long sleeves and pants before you head to the blackberry patch. Berries will be red until they turn black at ripening.

Where to look for wild blackberries

Wild blackberries are going to be found in late summer/early fall. They often grow in forests that have recently had some logging done, sunny road ditches, and pastured land.

Hedgehog Mushrooms

Hedgehogs grow in the woods, ready for foraging in fall in Wisconsin

There is a huge abundance of mushroom varieties growing in Wisconsin, but not all wild mushrooms are safe to eat. The hedgehog mushroom is easily identifiable and doesn’t have any poisonous look alike mushrooms to be afraid of. As always with fall foraging in Wisconsin, you’ll need to be sure you’ve actually picked the plant you’re foraging for and not a mimic. Hedgehog mushrooms are a nutty, almost meaty flavored mushroom, that like all wild mushrooms should be eaten cooked.

What to look for when foraging for hedgehog mushrooms

Hedgehog mushrooms are cream in colored with an orangish, brownish undertone. They are easily recognizable by the teeth on their underside rather than gills. After picking, you’ll also notice a solid stem rather than a hollow one. If the mushroom you’ve picked has a hollow stem or has gills, it is not a hedgehog mushroom.

There aren’t any poisonous look-alikes, which makes identifying them much safer (and easier!). As always when identifying mushrooms, take precautions to ensure what you have picked is actually what you believe it to be. All wild mushrooms should be cooked before consumed.

A hedgehog mushroom foraged in fall in Wisconsin — Notice the solid stem and teeth on the hedgehog mushroom

Where to look for hedgehog mushrooms

When fall foraging in Wisconsin for hedgehog mushrooms, be sure to check wooded areas around conifers and hardwood trees. There, you will often find these cream-colored mushrooms growing in clusters. It is important to know that hedgehog mushrooms will not grow directly on trees, though.

Wild Edible Nuts: Walnut, Hickory, Butternut, and American Filbert

Butternut, black walnut, hickory, and American Filbert are amongst the best edible nut trees for fall foraging in Wisconsin.

Butternut Trees

What to look for: The Butternut Tree is easiest to locate in fall when the football shaped nuts are beginning to drop. If the nut is fuzzy and greenish with brownish black ripening, it’s probably a butternut. Butternut isn’t as common as it used to be due to a disease known as butternut canker, which significantly reduces the lifespan of a tree as well as reducing it’s overall vigor, leading to weak growth, low nut yield and eventually, death. From anecdotal observations, the trees can still reach about 30 years of age, and bear fair crops.

Where to find it: Butternut trees can be found along the edges of woods and hedgerows and atop rocky areas and in riverside woods. Butternut needs a lot of sunlight to grow well, so stay more sunny than not.

Black Walnut

What to look for: The Black Walnut is perhaps the most common of the edible nut trees in Wisconsin, especially in the southern half of the state. It is a stately tall forest tree with heavy branches and dark bark. The Nuts are rounded and covered in a smooth light green husk. Difficult to crack and extract, the nut meat is highly desired by wildlife.

Where to find it: Rich soil produces the best plants, but these edible nut trees are found in a wide array of conditions. Look for them at woodland edges, old fields, pastures and river and creek side conditions.

Shagbark Hickory

What to look for: Characteristic shaggy bark, large, arching and peeling gray plates cover the trunk of this edible nut tree. Often found in groves and clusters in a woodland setting. The more sunny and open the better. Large compound leaves and thick branches are also helpful in ID. The nuts are coated in a green husk that shatters and breaks away as the light cream colored to tan nuts ripens inside. This plant is alternate bearing, meaning there is only a strong crop every other year or so.

Where to find it: You can find these trees usually on drier spots on hills, as they prefer open and sunny locations. They are tolerant of heavy clay soils and rocky dry spots. They can also be in nearly pure stands known as hickory bushes.

American Filbert

What to look for: The American Filbert is easiest to see when the sets of encapsulated and frilled nut clusters are ripening. This shrubby plant is usually 4-8 feet tall with multiple arcing canes coming from the underground root systems.

Where to find it: This edible nut tree can be found in many habitats, but does best with a lot of sun. Hedgerows, forest edges, and wetland edges often have large healthy colonies. Can also be found in forests, but usually there it is a much smaller and looser looking plant with scant nut production.

Unripe American Filbert. Wait until you can see brown before you harvest.

Interested in growing your own edible nut trees?

Check out this post here, dedicated to growing your own edible nut trees for your homestead property.

Looking for more on fall foraging in Wisconsin?

An excellent book on fall foraging in Wisconsin is called The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer. The book is jam-packed full of images, descriptions, and easy to identify wild edibles, making it a great book to have on hand when fall foraging in Wisconsin.

Fall Foraging in Wisconsin

Table of Contents

Wild Apples