field note · foraging · permission

Finding the foraging rules where you live, without trusting a chart

There is no single American rule about picking things outdoors, and any page that gives you a state by state table is telling you something it cannot keep current. What there is instead is a reliable method: work out who manages the ground you are standing on, then read what that manager publishes. This page is the method, not the answer.

Why we will not print the table

Rules differ by landowner, by agency, by unit within an agency, and by species. They change, and they change without announcement to garden blogs. A table copied into a page in 2026 is wrong somewhere by 2027, and the reader has no way to know which row went stale.

We would rather give you four minutes of method that stays true than a table that looks authoritative and is not. Note also that this page is about permission, not about identification. Whether you may pick something and whether you can safely tell what it is are two entirely different questions, and this site does not answer the second one.

Step one: who manages this ground

Before the question "may I pick this" comes the question "whose is this". In practice the ground under you in the United States is one of these:

A national forest, managed by the US Forest Service. Rules are published per forest at fs.usda.gov, and the unit to look for is the individual forest, not the agency.
Public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, with its own rules per field office at blm.gov.
A national park, managed by the National Park Service, whose rules are published per park at nps.gov. Park rules are generally stricter than forest rules, and the park's own page is the only place to confirm what applies.
State land: a state forest, state park or wildlife area, under a state agency, usually a department of natural resources or equivalent.
County or city land, a park district or an open space authority.
Private land, where the rule is simply the owner's answer, and the only correct way to get it is to ask.

A single afternoon's walk can cross three of these. The boundary is rarely marked in a way a person notices.

Step two: read that manager's own page

Once you know the manager, search for the unit's name plus the word the agency uses for this, which is usually "gathering", "collecting" or "special forest products" rather than "foraging". Agencies do not use the word that gardeners use.

What to look for on the page, in this order: whether any gathering is allowed at all; whether it is limited to personal use; whether a permit is required and how to get one; which species or groups are excluded; and any quantity limit. If the page does not say, the answer is not "yes by default", the answer is "call and ask", and the contact is usually on the same page.

Step three: write down what you found, with the date

Save the link and the date you read it. Next season, check it again rather than trusting your memory of it. This is the same discipline we use for every number on this site, and it exists because pages change quietly.

Three things that are true regardless of the rule

Permission is not safety. An agency saying you may pick something says nothing about whether you have identified it correctly.
Protected and rare species exist everywhere, and they are protected on public and private land alike. If you do not know what you are looking at, that alone is a reason to leave it.
Leaving plenty behind is the practice, not a nicety. A patch that gets cleaned out is not there next year for you or anyone else.

Our safety rules cover the habits that matter more than any plant list, and what to do when identification does not close covers the moment this all actually gets decided.