A Kelowna forager says he’s discovered a new concept for steady food production in the city.
Scott Moran picks wild produce and sells it at the Kelowna Farmers’ and Crafters’ Market. When the pandemic hit, Moran lost a lot of his restaurant clientele and was left spending more of his time exploring wild produce – which led to his latest discovery: human disturbance on land can actually create an opportunity for steady food production.
Although there is a lot of construction and logging happening across British Columbia land, Moran believes he found a silver lining.
He claims Lamb quarter, a wild spinach closely related to beets and quinoa, is growing in areas disturbed by humans and are activated when areas are bulldozed or excavated.
“You’re left with this beautiful bed of wild spinach. Right now, it looks like sprouts,” he explained to the Capital News.
“It’s funny because people are walking by it and they might go home and have sprouts in a plastic tray, but here they are just sitting in the field.”
And in areas clear-cut by logging companies, Moran said he has found huckleberries growing.
Moran knows he may not be the first person to come to this realization, but he feels more people in Kelowna should know about the abundant food growing right in their backyards.
“There’s this secret code that we have been ignoring for our whole lives that I believe I’ve tapped into.”
Moran grew up foraging, he was eight years old when he picked his first mushrooms. As he got older, he decided to sell the mushrooms he would gather at the farmers’ market. He has worked on 10 different farms and he’s been taught by biodynamic farmers. For 6 months, he worked for a company that focused on wild foraging where he was able to gain more foraging and plant knowledge.
Since then, he has been locally foraging plants, berries, mushrooms and more right here in Kelowna. You can find him at the Kelowna Farmers Market and he offers his own foraging classes.
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