The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants

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Margaret: Because, boy oh boy, is that an astringent fruit. And even the elderberries, the timing is everything with the elderberries, right? Even as common as that is, and you see the birds going wild on it. But for us, it’s a useful plant, but timing is everything. So again, you have to do your homework. You have to become intimately knowledgeable, study these creatures not only to ID them but to potentially engage with them in terms of using them in any way, I think.

https://robinhoodradioondemand.com/podcast-player/32907/food-habitats-with-jared-rosenbaum-a-way-to-garden-with-margaret-roach-november-7-2022.mp3 Commonly found in gardens as well as arable fields, dunes, cliffs and heathland. Low growing and sprawling. Flowers are red with a purplish base. It’s time to expand our vision past supporting birds, butterflies, and bees, and fully integrate the most challenging animal of all, the human being, into our native plant gardens,” he writes. So tell us the short version of what ecological restoration is, because that might sound different to gardeners listening. And what we’re discovering is just because there’s not a lot of ramps around, doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be a lot of ramps.

Further reading:

Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America by Samuel Thayer First published in 1987, and providing a snapshot of British garden plants and trends for more than 30 years, the RHS Plant Finder is a horticultural bible. Very abundant on waste ground as well as on heaths and in hedgerows and woodland. Thorny shrub with white or pale pink flowers. Sussex Botanical Recording Society has a Plant of the Week feature which includes ID tips: https://www.sussexflora.org.uk/

IN HIS NEW BOOK, “Wild Plant Culture,” restoration ecologist Jared Rosenbaum says something provocative about gardening with native plants. So if there’s plants missing from that community, what are the missing elements here? And sometimes they’re disturbances like wildfire. And sometimes they’re missing animal species, like large carnivores. Margaret: Yeah. I will maybe touch on some of these later on in the discussion and I’ll put some with the transcript of the show. You have some videos that you’ve done speaking about those very old relationships of plants with a place and really wonderful YouTube videos, a series of those. So I want to definitely shout those out. Easily recognisable flower with a yellow centre and numerous white petals. Abundant in short grass such as parks and garden lawns.

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Common in grass and roadside verges. Bright blue flower with a white eye on a sprawling stem. Leaves oval and toothed.

Margaret: Right, right. Yeah. No, I mean you’re really on the ground, hands-on learning this. And part is from drawing inferences, as you say, about where you might see it growing naturally and so forth, and the life history of the plant, how it grows and where it grows and so forth.Margaret: One of the things about the… I hate to use a word like useful, because that’s obviously not what I mean, because they’re useful in such deeper ways, but the plants that we could utilize as foodstuffs or medicines or whatever, or, as you say, in crafting, that… Jared:… how can learn what these plants really need and harvest some of those seeds every fall and bring them to another suitable habitat and understand their habitat and understand them well enough to know what that is? So I think there’s this whole process of discovery here. There’s discovering this really delicious gourmet food, and then there’s discovering the personality of somebody else in our community, in this case, a plant being in our community, that needs our help.

Below are the best foraging books I’ve found among the dozens I’ve consulted over the years. Note that they focus on edible and medicinal plants of North America, but you can also find some books on foraging specific to your region or other parts of the world. Many plants described in foraging books grow on several continents. Originally compiled by Chris Philip and his partner Denys Gueroult, who were looking for interesting plants to grow in their garden and recording what nursery was selling what selection, the original Plant Finder listed 22,000 plants. Since then, the book has grown in terms of the plant groups it covers, its comprehensiveness and the number of genera, species and cultivars that are included. Organized by season, this The New Wildcrafted Cuisine goes beyond recipes to explain techniques like preserving, fermenting, and how to cook with bark and sap, and how to make wild hot sauce, jam, and cheese. Baudar also explores how to use insects and how to create unique herb blends using ingredients found on forest floors. ID sheets for buttercups, small white brassicas, speedwells, strawberries and violets have been produced by #dinkymoira" - see box on right.For a compact foraging guide you can carry on foraging expeditions that still covers a good range of plants, consider Elias and Dykeman’s Edible Wild Plants or one of the smaller guides covering your region, like those by Teresa Marrone, both described in the entries below. Baudar also has a book on fermenting wildcrafted ingredients and one on wildcrafted brewing. Forage, Harvest, Feast by Marie Viljoen