By the second week of April, the first ramsons are up in the beech forest above Stepanavan. Before any trail has been walked that year, before the snow has fully cleared from the north-facing slopes, these are already there.
April: When the Forest Feeds You First
Ramsons — wild garlic — are aggressive plants. They grow in dense mats on the beech forest floor, and they grow early. The moment the soil temperature rises above freezing, their leaves push through the leaf litter. You can find them by smell before you see them: that sharp, unmistakable onion scent that fills the air under the trees.
In Lori, ramsons grow on the north side of the gorges where snow lingers longest. This means they're available when the lower-elevation farms are still dormant. The best gathering is in the first two weeks of April — after they've sized up enough to take, before the plants have flowered and become tough. You pick the outer leaves and leave the central growth to regenerate. A cloth bag, an hour of walking, and you have a season's worth of wild garlic. Eat them raw on bread with butter. Use them as a base for soup. They freeze excellently.
Nettles appear at the same time, but they want sun. Look for them on southern slopes, along ditches, anywhere the ground is disturbed and warm. The rule is simple: pick the top four inches — the growing tip and the four leaves below it. These are tender. Anything below that is fibrous and not worth the effort. Blanch them for three minutes in salted water, and you have a gorgeous deep green vegetable that goes into soups, pastries, or mixed with madzoon — the sour yogurt that is as essential to Lori cooking as salt.
Wood sorrel is delicate and comes last in April — small heart-shaped leaves with a sour, lemony taste. Use it as a garnish, in salads, or just eat it as you walk. It's not a staple. It's a gift — a flavor to remind you that the forest is producing again.
May: The Month of Flowers and Fruits
Elderflower arrives like a switch flipping — suddenly the valley floor hedges are heavy with flat white clusters. The smell is unmistakable. May is the only month you can take elderflower. Pick the entire flower head on a morning after dew has dried but before the sun gets high. Shake out any insects. You can make a cold-steeped syrup that will last all year: cover the flowers with water, let them infuse for a week, strain, and add sugar. It's delicate and floral and nothing like the commercial cordials.
Wild strawberries — tiny, fragrant, rare — appear at the forest edge where the trees thin and the light comes in. They're not worth picking in any quantity. But they're a seasonal marker and they're sweet. Stop and eat them when you find them.
Yarrow shows up on sunny slopes with poor soil — limestone ground where not much else thrives. The leaves are feathery and aromatic. Take the young growth. Dry them for tea, or use fresh leaves in soups. They have a slight bitterness that works well with fatty foods. You'll use less yarrow than nettles, but it's a valuable addition to the forager's knowledge.
June and July: The Heart of the Foraging Season
Summer savory is the herb that most defines Lori. It grows on the limestone outcrops above 1,100 meters, usually in small communities of plants on otherwise barren rock. The growing season is short and intense. The plant puts all its energy into flavor. A single leaf has more punch than a handful of cultivated savory.
Pick summer savory after the morning dew but before midday heat. The flavor is brightest in the cool hours. Use it in khorovats — barbecued meat — where it will be cooked quickly and just long enough to release its oils without destroying the volatile compounds. Dry it carefully for winter use. Many Lori kitchens have a store of dried summer savory that gets added to soups in October, to stews in January, to anything that needs the particular warmth this herb provides.
Wild mint grows along stream banks, where the soil stays moist. It's not delicate. You can harvest it aggressively and it will bounce back. Cut the stems above the first set of leaves and the plant will branch. Use it fresh — in salads, with fresh cheese, in cold drinks. Dry it for tea. The mountain mint has more flavor than what you'll find at lower elevations.
Mountain thyme is tiny but concentrated. It grows in the same limestone communities as summer savory — dry, hard ground, full sun. A small handful of thyme leaves has more flavor than you'd expect. Use it in the same applications as summer savory — grilled meat, stews, slow cooking. It's tougher than the summer savory and can handle longer cooking.
Late Summer and Early Fall
By August, the herb season is cooling but not finished. Green walnuts are still available for a preserve — picked before the shell hardens, they can be pickled whole or made into a sweet confit. This is late summer work, and it requires commitment: the walnut stains everything it touches a deep brown.
Late berries — bilberries on the high slopes, rose hips beginning to ripen — become available. These are more properly foraging than herb work, but they're part of the seasonal calendar.
What Not to Pick
The biggest danger in foraging is misidentification. Wild carrot and poison hemlock are visually similar enough that it's easy to confuse them, especially when you're new to foraging. Both are umbel plants with white flowers. The differences are real — hemlock has red blotches on the stems, a musty smell when crushed, a distinctive shape to the leaves — but they're not always obvious.
Don't forage wild carrot or any wild umbel unless you're with someone who knows the plant and can show you the identifying characteristics in person, multiple times, until you're certain. This isn't paranoia. It's respect for plants that can kill you.
The Ethics of Foraging
The forest is generous, but it isn't infinite. If you're taking plants for food, follow these rules: Pick what you'll actually eat. Don't harvest plants just to be harvesting. Leave the roots. Many wild plants regrow from the root if you take only the above-ground growth. Don't do this for every plant in a patch — take some and leave some. Never strip a patch clean. If you come back to a spot where you foraged last year and there aren't three times as many plants as you took, you were too aggressive. Learn from that and take less next time.
The forest in April through August is producing food for itself and for you. Your role is to be intelligent about your share.