PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — At the farmers market on campus at Portland State University, one vendor features local treasures of mushrooms in each of his baskets.
Charles Riley is a salesperson for Farm & Wild. However, he doesn’t just sell the mushrooms. He’s also a forager, often going out for miles to get them.
“We’ve hiked between 10 to 20 miles a day through the woods. You know, just a normal day,” he said. “We forage it and we grow it.”
The “we” includes Kerr Zhang, who started Farm & Wild years ago with her husband.
“We deliver to restaurants here in the Portland area. (The) farmers market helps get products out to other people too,” Riley said.
With a good variety of products, Riley says they often travel 20 to 30 miles outside of Portland before setting out on a rugged outdoor adventure, which is all in a day’s work.
“You got to go out there and find them, haul them back, and we go out somewhere between three to four miles out in the woods. We use GPS back trackers we set at the car, we take off,” Riley said.
Discovering where foragers like them go is a secret to their success.
“You don’t tell everybody where it’s at because it’ll bring in too many people and next thing you know, they wipe your patch out, and you can’t really find anything because everybody else is there,” Riley said.