What to forage in spring

As spring breaks through the cold we all start to get anxious for warm weather activities! One of my favorite things to do is to forage for wild herbs. These are the basis of many of the salves and teas I make during the year. 

In the first few weeks of spring I often forage baskets and baskets of herbs to dry!

There are lots of wild herbs (AKA weeds) that you can forage for in your yard or local park in summer, but only a few that are ready to be collected this early in the year. 

Dandelions and plantain are two that start the earliest. Wild violet is not far behind, but only has a window of a few weeks before the flowers are gone.

I'm in Pennsylvania, so our foraging is dependent on the cold weather breaking. Plants that are just getting started up here, like chickweed are already way out of control in southern states! Many plants prefer spring to fall in the south and die out over summer.

Either way, now is the perfect time to start foraging!

Foraging violets and brewing tea

I like to do a little foraging every year in early spring. I'm ready for my garden to start producing and it's entirely too early, but the warm weather has me itching for garden activities! So I do some foraging since many native plants are ready to be harvested before the garden even gets planted. Plantain is plentiful this time of year as are wild violets. 

Violets are one of my favorite flowers to forage and use for teas and syrups because not only do violets taste good and have some amazing healing properties, but they turn everything a beautiful purple color!

While these pretty little flowers are one of the first blooms of spring, they don't last long so pick them while you can. In fact, harvest as much violet as you need for the year because they won't be back till next year! (ethically foraging them of course) Violet has been used for centuries for it's many healing properties.

Both the flower and the leaves of the wild violet are edible but the stems are not. The flowers and leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. Violet leaves contain fiber, vitamins A & C and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They are used to encourage healing and soothe the digestive, respiratory and urinary tracts. 

I think the easiest way to take violet is by making violet tea or tincture. 

How to use Red Clover herb

Red clover is one of my favorite herbs to use. Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is often thought to be a weed since it has the tendency to show up in unkempt areas like roadsides and empty lots. Since it tends to grow wild, it's easy for me to find on my foraging walks. It is a perennial plant and is a member of the legume family. It's often used as a cover crop or grazing crop and helps to improve the soil.
Truth is, red clover has a ton of wonderful health uses! 

Red clover is high in many vitamins and minerals and it has a long history of uses in herbal healthcare. Also, the flowers are edible and make a lovely garnish for desserts.

Red clover is one of the first herbs I tried when I started using herbs back in the early 90s. I had read in a little booklet called Historical Uses of Herbs that it was good for strengthening the ovaries and for stress. I had both of these problems so I started drinking red clover tea daily and the problems sorted themselves out in about a month.

After that I was hooked! I read everything that little booklet said and tried every herb I thought I needed. Over the years I've used many herbs but my love affair with red clover has never waned.

How to make dandelion oil (it's super easy!)

Dandelions are everywhere right now! I'm sure you've seen them, you might have even had to pull some of these pesky 'weeds' already. Did you know that dandelions are quite useful?

Not only are dandelions the first food for bees and butterflies each spring, but every part of the plant can also be used by us.

I use dandelion flowers for dandelion oil and the dandelion root for tea. The leaves are also edible, but we'll get back to those other uses another time. 

Today I want to share how I make dandelion oil.

The common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is a member of the daisy family. Dandelions are perennial which may come as a surprise, because many people believe they are annuals and just have a really good seed distribution method. 

Dandelion flowers are known to act as a mild analgesic, so an oil made with the flowers soothes sore muscles and helps with arthritis pain.

I make dandelion oil to use alone as a muscle rub and in my salve recipes. It's very easy to make and can be used so many ways.

8 wild herbs I forage for (and you can too!)

One of the things I did a lot of this past year is foraging. Some call this wildcrafting. It's simply looking for and harvesting wild growing food or medicinal plants. Foraging sounds difficult but it's really easy and these 8 wild herbs I foraged for are really easy to identify if you know what  you're looking for. 

To start foraging, I took a lot of foraging walks. I live far out in the country and take walks down these lovely country roads and wooded trails several times a week. 

I found some wonderful things like a field full of Milkweed, and one certain path that has tons of Red Clover growing. There's a huge patch of Jewelweed around the corner and up the road and Yarrow grows at the end of my driveway. 

On these walks I carried little mesh pouches to collect things in. I was very careful to not take too much. I collected in small batches and dehydrated everything immediately. Thankfully as the summer went on, these plants kept growing and growing so there was always more the next time I went back. 

In all I collected 8 different herbs to use for medicines and other products like salves. Here are the 8 herbs I collected...

Plantain, harvesting, drying and using

I am a very frustrated gardener right now. Our last frost date was only last week so you know my plants aren't quite producing yet. I have nothing to harvest or even really tend to, except weeds. Why is it that a late frost can kill a vegetable plant, but not weeds? Weird, right?

Anyway, the one thing I do have a lot of is naturally growing medicinal plants like dandelions, plantain and lambs quarters. 

So I'm picking and drying plantain herb today. The herb Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago major) has many amazing uses especially for cuts and bug bites. It really takes the 'owe' out of cat scratches too!

In fact, it's the main ingredients in my 2 Ingredient bug bite remedy.

What is Broadleaf Plantain?

Plantain is a perennial 'weed' you probably have growing in your yard or garden. Not to be confused with the banana type fruit you see in some stores.

Broadleaf plantain has a rosette of large oval shaped leaves with veins that run from bottom to top. The plant sets out several dense spikes from the center of seeds/flowers.

There are about 250 different species of plantain but we're looking at 'Plantago major'. That's it's official name although it's nickname is "Englishman's foot" by Native Americans because it seemed to appear everywhere in European settlers colonies.

As much of an annoyance as it is, it has many great uses also. It's said that plantain was once called 'snakeweed'  because it helps with snakebites, but don't go trying that just 'cause I said so! (see a Dr of course!)

It is believed to be brought to the Americas by Puritan settlers for medicinal uses.