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Foraging. It costs almost nothing to learn about the plants that grow around you and what you can do with them. I've been doing it for about 5 years now, and spent maybe $80 on a good hori hori and $40 on a good mortar and pestle when I wanted to get serious. Neither of those are necessary to forage. A good field guide is something you can order at your local library. The main cost is time studying at home and on the field.
Here's some amazing pesto I made with wild mustard garlic greens.
And the before picture
I can not recommend the hobby enough. I'm happy to try and answer any questions you might have.
This does sound very compelling, but how did you start?
When I go outside in a place that has plants I try to ID at least one that I don't know. When I get a positive ID on it, I'll look it up and sometimes it will have edible or medicinal properties.
Fell mouth first into a blueberry bush while hiking
Hehe, I don't know much but I know those very well. There's lots of them in Franconia!
Did you know that wolves prefer blueberries to meat?
Oh man I got to enjoy a chicken of the woods mushroom for the first time last year and it was amazing. We enjoyed sumac tea all summer and have a bounty of hickory nuts this fall. I made wild riverbank grape jelly from grapes harvested from my mom's backyard. Definitely need to be careful with ID'ing and never picking something you're not 100% sure of but it's liberating and satisfying.
I unfortunately live too deep inside the city to try that😅. There's very little vegetation around.
I’m not sure where you are exactly but you’d be shocked. When I was last in New York I actually took an “Urban Foraging Tour”. They showed us these wild weeds that grow on stoops that apparently make a great tea.
I don’t forage as a hobby so obviously this is all just experience from one two hour tour I took like five years ago but still!
You would be surprised. Dandelion for example is a plant that thrives in cities, is entirely edible, and you can roast it's taproot into a delicious coffee substitute.
I started out with dandelion actually. I made a whole plant tea out of it heat dried. It entirely transformed the plant into something that smelled delicious, almost this floral toasted honey smell.
Just don't take from places where a lot of pets get walked, right next to roads, or sprayed. Wash everything and anything you take home throughly, and research research research before you start picking.
Garlic mustard can be great, but you have to get it at the right time. It becomes bitter when the plant starts to mature.
While experimenting with it one time I did something resembling Palak Chaat with some tender young leaves. They fried up beautifully and ended up translucent - like green stained glass - and wonderfully crispy.