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Can I be honest for a moment? I’m terrified of messing up when it comes to foraging and like… give myself food poisoning or worse. I did a lot of research and settled on my very mild backyard. The realization came when I understood what I could or couldn’t eat, but it was still a fairly rational fear. I had never eaten things in the wild before, farm and home grown yes… the wild, no.
I try really hard to push my boundaries when it comes to food, I guess you could say that I am a pretty adventurous eater. I have been wanting to learn how to forage for a long time, I just knew it would be a lot of work. I started working on identifying things in my extremely lush backyard right when the frost melted. Just as soon as I started researching, violets began popping up all over the yard. That’s when I knew, it was my time to forage.
I found:
– Sweet Violets
– Dandelion
– Red Dead Nettle
– Clover
– Wild Garlic
– Henbit
– Cleaver
– Mock Strawberry
Some things weren’t ready for picking, but the majority of them were. So I took the corgis out with me and we got to foraging. This was also extremely helpful in learning what dogs can and can’t eat. I recently bought a book called “The Green Witch’s Herb and Plant Encyclopedia: 150 Ingredients for Everyday Witchcraft” and it has it stated in there what plants are actually pet safe! I hope that in the future, the author does another more comprehensive addition because it was extremely helpful. My dogs are involved in the majority of my practices, they are my familiars and it’s nice when witchy books include pet safety. That being said, the dogs were allowed to eat some of the foraged goodies – specifically: Clover, violets and dandelion.
Once I was finished outside with my fairly large floral haul, I got to work on trying to figure out what to do with my trove of goodies. First I needed to clean everything up, so I washed everything thoroughly, dried and trimmed everything up. I decided on making: Bath salt, simple syrup, dried herbs for my craft or teas and a few anointing oils for candles. I used “No Fuss Natural“s recipe for my violet bath salt and “Will Frolic for Food“s simple syrup recipes, both worked out perfectly for my needs. Everything else that was picked was processed or bundled for drying, this includes parchment paper drying or hung upside-down to dry traditionally. I don’t have a dehydrator and I get to them when I get to them after they have been hanging out to dry for a while.
Overall, I ended up with a pretty decent haul of goods simply by foraging my yard. Everything was delicious or generally just wonderful to use. I look forward to continuing foraging through Summer and Fall, learning about what was in my year was difficult, but satisfying. Having a better understanding of the natural world around me makes me feel a lot safer being outdoors, especially with the dogs. I encourage everyone to at least investigate the boundaries of their property line to see what useful herbs are available to you through the year.
