“If you were around SARCRAFT in the early days, you would have heard Jonathan and I refer to Sweetgum as the most useless tree in the forest, only good for making toothbrushes (which we’ll touch on in a minute.)”
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 10/31 - Witch Hazel
“Oh, and about that weird name… why is it witch hazel? Well, there are two explanations….”
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 9/12 - Orange Jewelweed
Medicinally, jewelweed really only has one application: Used externally, as a poultice or decoction. However, in this application, it’s fantastic.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 8/15 - Heal All
Like most medicinal herbs, Heal All was cast aside by modern medicine more than a century ago in favor of synthetic pharmaceuticals. Plant medicines have been considered by most physicians and pharmacists in the past hundred years to be unreliable folk tales at best, and dangerous at worst. Even among the herbal medicine community, Heal All was marginalized to a second-tier herb in favor of more powerful and trendy plants. But modern science may be vindicating it.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 8/8 - Mountain Mint
The power of this herb can’t be underestimated, as is evidenced by the reverence in which native Americans and pioneers alike held it. The Choctaw considered it sacred, and swore by it as a last-ditch effort to revive the dying… and even raise the dead.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 8/1 - Sarsaparilla
The fact that these plants are valuable as wild edibles and medicinals are evidence that God doesn’t create anything without a purpose, and that everything that grows in the forests and fields has a use… because I absolutely despise them.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 7/25 - Maypop Passionflower
“Before all children everywhere became locked on iPad screens, kids in the country used to have fights with green maypops. They’re a uniform shape and easy to throw accurately, and they raise a good welt if you throw them hard. They make an awesome hand grenade if you’re nine years old and have an active imagination. (I may or may not be speaking from experience.)”
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 7/11 - Golden Chanterelle
I was hiking through Shenandoah National Park in northern Virginia and happened upon a kindly old man and his wife picking mushrooms. I asked what he was harvesting and he replied, “Chanterelles. They’re the best mushrooms in the world. You want some?”
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 7/4 - White Pine
“The true American answer to overbearing authority is defiance, not obedience. After all, they were willing to pick a fight with the British Crown over a tree.”
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 6/13 - Dewberry
Some plants that we’ve covered in the past, while they’ll keep you alive and might even be highly nutritious, really just taste awful. But then there are those that are not only passable, but delicious.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 6/6 - Henbit Deadnettle
So named because chickens absolutely love it, it’s very closely related to Purple Deadnettle from a few months ago, and the two can be used interchangeably. Consider it a 2-for-1 deadnettle deal: If you can learn how to use one, you know how to use the other by default.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 5/30 - Oxeye Daisy
One of the most recognizable wildflowers in the world, daisies have also been used as a medicinal plant for thousands of years.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 5/23 - Red Clover
“As medicine advances and more and more compounds are synthesized from natural sources, maybe it’s time we humbled ourselves and realized that the ancients knew what they were talking about.”.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 4/25 - Common Vetch
Vetch and humans go way back. Way, way back, like 10,000-15,000 years. With a few exceptions such as cereal grains, vetch is arguably the oldest plant cultivated by humans.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 4/11 - Indian Strawberry
Spoiler alert: It's not really a strawberry.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 4/4 - Purple Dead Nettle
Although it sounds like an alt-metalcore band name (at least to me), purple dead nettle is another common “lawn weed” that you’ve probably walked by every day without knowing what it was.
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 3/7 - Eastern Redbud
"Many tribes also had a tradition of decorating their dwellings with redbud wreaths and twigs, to help “drive out the spirit of winter” and bring on planting time."
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 2/28 - Chickweed
"Chickweed is just another example of how the most valuable plants in your yard are probably the ones you’ve been trying to kill. Along with plantain, oxalis, lamb’s ear, burdock, dandelion, and many more, there’s a whole salad bar and pharmacy right outside your front door."
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 2/21 - Yucca
"Yucca has several survival and bushcraft uses, and they’re all really, really cool. Three particular ones stand out, however."
Read more#WildEdibleWednesday 1/17 - Black Walnut
"Poachers will sneak onto a property in the middle of the night, cut down a walnut tree, and steal it... So if you have some of these trees on your property, our advice to you is to keep a good hold on your walnuts. Don’t want nobody touchin’ your walnuts without permission."
Read more