Harvesting Seaweed - Experience the Ocean's Abundance!
Harvesting seaweed is an amazing and magical experience! I love to get up in the early morning hours and head out to the shoreline when the low tide is just beginning.
It is an intimate connection with the ocean that is sacred to me.
The amount of seaweed exposed and falling from the rocky shore is incredibly abundant, enough seaweed to feed massive populations of people. Yet I always wondered why no one is ever taking advantage of this colorful, rich food source.
Most people just don't know, maybe like yourself, that you can harvest up to 17 pounds of seaweed a day in most regions.
I make a yearly trip to the California coastline to wildcraft as much as I can. There is nothing like seaweed you hand harvest yourself!
Tools:
A knife or sharp scissors.
Bags to hold your seaweed.
Pair of fishing boots. (optional)
Tidal Chart
(Tide charts are usually free at most local pharmacies in your area or locations where you can purchase a fishing license.)
Simple Steps to Harvesting:
1) Finding Location:
The first steps to harvesting seaweed are to get a tide chart from the area you wish to harvest. This region should be fairly pristine with clean ocean waters that are not by any major cities or industry pollutants.
Seaweed is harvested during a low tide when the ocean waters retreat revealing tons and tons of seaweed attached to the rocky shore. The tide chart will tell you when the "minus tides" (low tides) occur.
Most of the time you can just walk out on the rock and not even go in the water, unless you want to of course!
When ocean areas are polluted the seaweed in that location are often bright and neon in color, this is what you look for if you are unsure. Use your intuition and follow your gut feeling.
2) Seaweed Types:
Certain types of seaweed will grow in different coastal zones, some thriving in cold waters and others like it a bit warmer. So depending on where you are your selection will vary.
Get yourself a seaweed guide so you know the basic types to look for. All seaweeds are edible however! But there are some varieties that taste better than others, it's kind of a personal thing.
(There is one seaweed that causes some slight stomach upset due to a high acidic level, but it is not very common and if you know what you are collecting you won't have a problem.)
Get to know your favorites when harvesting seaweed! Some that I absolutely love, my friend can't stand.
So you just have to taste which ones vibe with you personally. I really love the flavor of turkish towl, it is hardy and thick, a red seaweed I love to grind up into a powder and sprinkle on food.
3) Harvest Time:
Seaweed dies back in the winter months and blooms again from the same plant holdfast in the early summer and fall times of year. So this is the best time to investigate growth.
On the day of harvest prepare to be at the beach location sometime before the peak of low tide, according to your tide chart.
You will see an abundance of not just seaweed but all kinds of life forms from star fish to perhaps seals.
Be careful where you step and be respectful of other lifeforms living in these tidal waters.
When "wildcrafting" or harvesting seaweed never take the whole plant. You want to ensure that the plant continues to grow back the following year.
So usually this means cut about half to three quarters of the blade, depending on the length. Kelp is of course long, so you can usually cut off quite a bit. Nori is short, so you cut less.
I only collect seaweed types that are growing in abundance. If there is not that much of one variety I let it grow so it can reproduce more abundantly.
4) Transporting and Drying:
After you have big bags of delicious seaweeds like: kelp, wakami, cystoseira, turkish towel, dulse, nori, bladder wrack, kombu or irish moss then you can transport it home to be dried.
Use a cold ice chest for transportation is best, if the seaweed gets too hot for a long period of time it will start to break down and get mucilaginous and slimy.
Usually it stores pretty well until you get it home to dry. To dry your harvest hang a clothes line in the shining sun.
This is how seaweed is dried, in sunlight! It doesn't take long in intense sun, a few hours. An alternative is to lay your seaweed out on sheets or tarps.
5) Storage
Once your sea veggies are dried you will need to store them in a dry, air tight container. I use big glass gallon jars. Store them in a cool, dry, dark place and they will be well preserved for probably years.
Mine never make it that long before I eat them up!
Harvesting seaweed can be fun for kids and the whole family. Make it a yearly event and ritual in your life!
The first steps to harvesting seaweed are to get a tide chart from the area you wish to harvest. This region should be fairly pristine with clean ocean waters that are not by any major cities or industry pollutants.
After you have big bags of delicious seaweeds like: kelp, wakami, cystoseira, turkish towel, 
