Garden Fruits & Forest Catches 2024

This is a summary of last year's fruits, vegetables & mushrooms that I was growing & picking all around my beautiful homeland Croatia, in mine & other people's gardens as well as the wild natural forests.

These are several species of beans that I was growing. The big colorful ones are favorite beans to eat. They are very sweet and remind me of chestnuts.

This orange mushroom is very appreciated in human diet. It is called Lactarius deliciosus, in English the delicious milk cap, saffron milk cap or red pine mushroom. In Croatian it's called "rujnica". They have a very unique taste so I can't eat them a lot so I don't even pick them a lot either.

I was picking olives again for one family in island Krk, Croatia. It is a hard work and not paid well. But it was fine for few days. If you want to have the best extra vergine olive oil, you'll find it Croatia where is the best for the last 2500 years! I can arrange it for you so feel free to contact me!

As every year, also last year I was picking porcini. This is Boletus edulis. Even though it was not the good season, I still managed to pick some. Mother Nature always gives.

These are also porcini just the other species - Boletus aereus.

This is the mushroom that everyone knows - fly agaric or Amanita muscaria - the queen medicine mushroom! Every year I pick some of these to make myself some medicinal tea or tincture.

I picked some apples too, from my friend's garden. Some I ate fresh some I used to make jam.

She was successfully growing paprika, eggplants & zucchini so she gave me some as a gift.

She also likes & grows different species of chili and also gave me as a gift.

My father and me were successfully growing peas too. There were so many that I managed to conserve them in jars.

After my granny's death just a bit more than a year ago, my mother inherited some land in Baška, Krk. There I was camping last summer. I found a huge mulberry tree and I was sooo happy picking it and eating every day!

In the end of the year the oranges become ripe so I was picking a lot in island Ilovik, Croatia.

Amanita pantherina is another fungi species that I started to study and it should be medicinal too if prepared correctly.

I was picking a lot of different edible mushrooms on island Krk.

Hypericum perforatum, commonly known as St John's wort, we call "gospina trava". I picked some and made a macerate.

Some morels I also dried to preserve them till next season.

There was more food I grew or collected. Just I don't have the photos. There is not much effort being invested to have so much given back to me. It was not so easy but not even too hard. I was really enjoying. I hope this will inspire you to do it yourself!