Are you hoping to forage some elusive morel mushrooms this year? These tips for hunting morels should be useful! 1. When to Start Searching Morel mushrooms (Morchella spp) are only around for a short window each spring, but it can be hard to know exactly when to begin your mushroom hunting. Morel mushroom hunting season…
Learn how to identify and forage for wild violets, plus how to harvest, preserve, and use them. Often considered a backyard weed, violets provide value to native butterflies, bees, and wildlife, and they offer food and herbal benefits for humans too! Foraging wild violets is an easy and fun springtime activity! Here’s how to make…
Learn how to identify and forage plantain, a common backyard weed, plus how to harvest, dry, and use it! The herbal weed we know as plantain belongs to the family Plantago – of which there are about 275 species worldwide. Some of the plantagos most commonly seen here in the United States are non-native, introduced…
Learn how to identify, harvest, and preserve wild American persimmons, a tasty late-fall foraged food! Look for American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) trees growing along field edges. They can sometimes have a shrubby appearance, especially when young, but can eventually grow quite tall – 20 to 60 feet. Unfortunately, many invasive shrubs, such as Autumn Olive…
Learn how to forage goldenrod – a native pollinator plant with herbal uses! You’ll also learn how to tell it apart from ragweed and other plants that bloom at the same time, plus tips on how to use it. Goldenrod (Solidago spp) is a bright yellow flowering plant that blooms in late summer and early…
St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a common weed with beautiful yellow flowers that are well loved by pollinators and herbalists alike! Learn how to identify and when to harvest this herb – then check out our accompanying article for information on making St. John’s Wort infused oil and salve for aches and pains! Tips…
In this article, you’ll learn what the data says about ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora). Is it endangered? Edible? Poisonous? Find out the answers to all of your questions below! Around June 8 every year, we start finding Ghost Pipe (also called Indian Pipe), mainly around our creek area. This year so far, we’ve had a…
Learn how to identify Japanese honeysuckle, an edible flower that can be used for tea, tincture, jelly, and more! Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is a non-native species of honeysuckle that you’ll often find growing in the wild. The trumpet shaped edible flowers not only smell amazing, they have food and herbal medicine uses too! Because…
Learn how to identify, safely harvest, prepare, and preserve stinging nettle, plus ways to use it for food, natural medicine, and more! Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) is delicious and nutritious wild edible that may already be growing near you. (If not, you can also grow it as an outdoors potted plant.) Not only is it…
Tasty and nutritious, black locust flowers are only in bloom for about two weeks each spring. Here’s how to identify and harvest them, plus ideas for using! Black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia), also called false acacia, are native to southeastern United States, but have spread throughout North America and the rest of the world. You’ll…
Learn how to identify and use chickweed – a common backyard weed that’s nutritious and delicious, and can also be turned into salves for itchy skin, and more! Where & When to Look for Chickweed While common chickweed (Stellaria media) isn’t a native plant, it has naturalized and spread all over North America, and is…
Learn how to identify and use Eastern redbud – a beautiful spring flowering tree that produces edible flowers! Where Redbud Grows Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) is native to the eastern part of North America – from the top part of Florida, all the way up to southern New England, and westward towards the Great Plains….