Wild foraging is gathering wild plants to eat.  Many people around here gather fiddleheads, wild blueberries, and maple sap.  Maple syrup, as you may well know, is kind of a big deal around here.  But there is far more out there to be found.  From raspberries to cattails, there is wild food all around you.

Wildcrafting is gathering wild plants for food, medicine, or crafts.  We use many different kinds of herbal remedies here on the homestead, but they can get expensive.  Any plants we can gather wild and make medicines with, makes them that much more affordable and makes us more sustainable.

By gathering wildfoods you are not only adding to the selection of foods you have, but it also allows you to have food that doesn’t cost money.  You do have to take the time to harvest and prepare your forage.

You also have to invest the time to learn how to identify the foods you are gathering.  This is incredibly important to be safe.  I am just learning to identify the wild foods, so I am not an authority on plant identification.  We are learning quite a bit about wildcrafting, but not enough to teach it yet.

We are also learning to preserve these wild medicinal herbs and prepare for use as medicines.  We are making herb teas, tinctures, oils, and salves.

We plan to do as much of this wildcrafting as we can this year.  I will share all the projects we do and the links with information that I included when learning about the herbs.  Thursday’s “food day” posts will be a lot of wildcrafting foods and medicines for as long as I can find new plants.

Herbrally

Daniel Vitalis

Eat the weeds

Eat the invaders