Gathering medicine and food from the wild connects us to the natural world, our ancestral heritage, and our wild animal selves. Being involved in our sustenance and healing is boldly empowering and ties us into simple living and the change of the seasons. – By gathering our own medicines carefully and conscientiously, we can be […]
One of my favorite breakfast dishes; a heart-friendly, wild foods/herbal version of the classic toasted bagel—Violet leaves and flowers and chickweed greens with a raw garlic olive oil sauce atop a whole grain bagel. Both chickweed and violets are rich in anti-oxidant vitamins and the violet flowers are colored by bio-flavanoids.
– I first met this beautiful plant as “Green headed coneflower” while exploring the rivers of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I had learned about using its roots as an immune stimulant, similar to Echinacea roots, from my teacher, Michael Moore. I was camping and felt the first whispers of a possible cold so I […]
The daylily is not only a versatile wild edible, but a beautiful and easy-to-grow perennial garden flower. It is native to Asia and has escaped cultivation over most of eastern North America. Daylily is a familiar sight alongside streams, roadsides, and fences. Chances are you are already living close to a patch of this showy member of the Xanthorrhoeaceae family.
– Common milkweed was one of the few plants I could recognize as a child, thanks to my nature-loving Grandpa Joe, who appreciated the monarch butterflies. (More on the monarch/milkweed relationship in a subsequent post). My mother encouraged it in her front yard for the same reason, much to the chagrin of her suburban neighborhood […]
