Karen Bedell | (623) 258-5566 | Email Vendor
It takes a special grit to spend 12-16 hours a day harvesting in the triple digit temperatures of Arizona’s desert summer. Yet this is the time to harvest the succulent prickly pear, saguaro, and barrel cactus fruits, not to mention the sweet, protein-rich mesquite pods and palo verde beans which ripen to perfection in the blazing summer sun. And Karen Bedell is there with them, thriving in the thorny wilderness, greeting, picking and thanking these wildly delicious plants for their abundant harvest.
Having learned to forage as a child in rural Colorado, nurse Karen used extended foraging trips to help the kids in her newly blended family to bond. It turns out that harvesting and preparing the food was so much fun, other children asked to come along. Over the years, Karen trained 27 young people to harvest their own food from the desert.
As they grew, some of the kids wanted to start a foraging business. A former baker, Karen guided the production of mesquite chocolate chip cookies, followed by jams, jellies, syrups, flours, granola, dried spices and other baked goods. Soon, Sonoran Scavengers was a popular vendor at farmers markets around the valley.
Although the kids have graduated on to other endeavors, Karen has continued to grow the business. You will find her booth at many local farmers markets and more than 25 festivals a year. And when you stop by, be sure to ask her what it is like to harvest from the desert!
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PRODUCTS: Wild foraged and locally-grown foods made into jams, jellies, syrups, flours, granola and dried spices
