Puck’s Plenty

Peter has some hidden gems in the stratford area. It was a great learning experience and the magic of spring was apparent everywhere.
We were shown pristine spots that I certainly felt blessed to be in. Could’ve camped out easily! Each week the landscape changes and it’s something you could easily take in several times and each outing find different things.
If you love outdoors, food, and respect Mother Nature. Don’t hesitate to sign up!
My kids and I loved it!
Thanks for the experience Peter
Win win for #pucksplenty

If you are at all interested in nature, hiking and foraging, you should go on one of Peter’s expeditions.
I am a Taurus girl, and anyone who knows a Taurus girl knows that we love to cook. But what is even more exciting to us, is being able to cook things that we’ve found from the earth and puled out with our bare hands. This tour satisfied the earthy Taurus in me and the Wild Outdoorsman in my Sagittarius boyfriend.
Last October, my we were in Stratford to see Othello. Now, he’s not the biggest Shakespeare fan, So I needed to find something fun for him while we were there (but also something fun for me, too.) Since we are both great lovers of the outdoors and especially foraging, I did some research on the internet and came across Puck’s Plenty.
For $ 35 per person, this outing can’t be beat. We all met in a designated area and shared rides to the different hiking sites. Peter had been out earlier and picked some wild cress for everyone and packaged it baggies for us to enjoy later.
Our specific goal was to find some fall mushrooms. At our first site, Peter showed us some that were good for eating and pointed out a few that were poisonous. Then we visited a second site where we took a walk through the woods for a couple of hours and found Velvet Foot Mushrooms on the sides of trees. Peter explained that they were good not only for eating, but for thickening and adding extra flavour to gravies and stews. We also found wild ginger root that he dig up for us (and I used some later that night in a vinaigrette on the wild cress and it was absolutely delicious).
Our third site was on a private farm with an amazing vegetable garden that we were free to pick anything we wanted from if we left a donation at the farmhouse. There were beets, squash, onions, leeks, pumpkins and turnips. This may sound like nothing to anyone who lives in the country, but as a country raised girl who lives in the concrete jungle now, it was like going home!
From there, we visited the most magical forest I’ve ever been in. It must have been an acre of tall thin pines, planted in formation. It was very dark and there were mushrooms as far as the eye could see. We found Lactaruis, Blewitt, and Puffball mushrooms. I think we spent over an hour in this incredible place, constantly finding new mushrooms, examining them and picking the ones that we could identify as ok to eat.
When we reached the farmhouse to leave our donation, we found out they had fresh eggs and bought 2 dozen.
Everyone on the tour with us was very friendly and helpful and Peter was a knowledgeable and seasoned guide. I would say that this was no only worth the $ 35 but far more in terms of learning and experience and we went home with more than enough delicious food for the whole week.
No matter what your sign is, I’m willing to bet that you’d have a great time out in the woods on a Puck’s Plenty foraging day.
Thank you, Peter.