Check back here occasionally for new informational articles on edible & medicinal wild plants, reviews of my favorite foraging books, and more!
Acorn recipes & spring foraging class schedule
After a cozy winter of partial hibernation, lately I’ve been getting outside again, harvesting the first spring greens for salads, smoothies and tea. I’ve also been using a lot of the acorn flour I processed last fall, experimenting with several recipes. They have all turned out amazing, and I’m addicted to acorn flour! It’s such…
Wild black walnut & pecan processing
The progression of the summer season is finally bringing the first of our staple Texas wild fruit harvests, which is just the beginning of a several month window where many wild fruits and nuts become ripe and ready to harvest, one species after another… Grapes and elderberries in late summer, progressing to beautyberry and sumac…
Wild medicinal plants for herbal tea
One of my favorite easy ways to get more wild plants into my body consistently is to harvest and dry various wild medicinal and nutritive leaves and flowers, and use them to make herbal tea. Decades ago, I learned from herbalist Susun Weed that some wild plants are both densely nutritive and medicinally useful, and…
The edible and medicinal uses of cleavers
It’s still late winter, but it feels like spring, and wild greens are popping up everywhere. I just had my first cup of cleavers juice of the year, which feels like a signal to my body that spring is truly here! I want to share details about the plant called cleavers, how to identify it,…
Foraging wild greens, smoothie recipe & spring class schedule
North Texas winters are generally mild, but it’s currently unseasonably warm for late February, even for this area. To be honest, I can’t say I’m upset about it! I always start to crave warm sunshine and wild greens near the end of winter, so I’m certainly taking advantage of it. Even during the colder parts…
Book review: Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants
Since January has been extra chilly for North Texas and I haven’t been doing much foraging, this blog post is going to be a review of my #1 favorite foraging book of all time. I’ve been amassing my current collection of foraging, edible wild plant, medicinal plant, and field guide type books for about 20 years…
Wild fermented holiday sodas – juniper & prickly pear
One of my ongoing food preparation hobbies for the past 14 years or so has been making wild fermented sodas. I love the variety of ingredients that can be used to make flavorful, refreshing, fizzy drinks full of beneficial microorganisms (bacteria and yeasts). I enjoy making sodas all year long, but there’s something about winter, and around…
What I’m foraging this fall
Ever since my fall foraging classes finished in November, I have been foraging for myself and my family quite avidly. I’ve put more energy and time into gathering, harvesting and processing wild food than I’ve done in the past several years. Besides being an activity I thoroughly enjoy, making that enough of a reason in…
Beautyberry harvesting & gummies recipe
There are two beautyberry shrubs growing on our property, which we planted because they are such a beneficial plant native to the southeastern United States, including Texas. Commonly used in natives-focused landscaping (like ours), it also grows plentifully in the wild, mainly in forested environments. The shrub grows quickly (between 3-6 feet tall when mature),…
Foraging smooth sumac, and a sumac soda recipe
After the dry, seemingly endless Texas summer, signs of edible life reappear gradually. One of the first harbingers of the harvest season that begins in late summer is the sumac fruit clusters. The dense, prominent clusters on these small to medium sized shrubs ripen to a bright red color, so are easily noticed against the…