Plant Nerding Out from Coast to Coast!

Hey wildcrafters,

I hope you had an awesome summer, I sure did.
I drove to the Atlantic ocean and back again, while checking out a lot of new ecosystems loaded with new and familiar plants.
I also got the chance to meet up with a few fellow plant nerds and learn about these new places. Over the next little while I'll be posting a few photos from my journey with descriptions of the plants and places I visited and also my observations of the similarities and differences in foraging across the country!

Check out the pictures to learn what I got up to!

 

Despite the dry year I managed to gather enough tender greens to make a large salad for Firemakers Gathering (http://www.firemaker.org/) this contains Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium album), Siberian Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia sibirica), Lance Leaved Plantain (Plantago lancelata), Self Heal (Prunella vulgaris), Pea Flowers (Lathyrus nevadensis), Huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium), Native Black Berries (Rubus ursinus), Black Raspberries (Rubus leucodermis) , and Thimble Berries (Rubus parviflorus).

 Some grasses and sage brush in Summerland. while summerland was very dry and most of the natural areas looked like this I found abundant lambs quarters growing wherever the irrigation reached, it is much more common there then in Victoria.

As you can see despite the dry arid climate the Okanagan Valley is very lush due to nightly irrigation, this makes it a great place for foraging, lots of weeds under all those vineyards and orchards.

 We found a ornamental cherry tree loaded with cherries in a small little mall in the Okanagan Valley, they were just as good as those that you would pay for, just a little smaller.

 Here is me with our harvest after only a half hours work.

 We made a stop near Lake Louise to appreciated the beautiful colored water and lovely wildflowers.

 Some beautiful wildflowers near Lake Louise, the purple is a species of aster (Aster spp.), the red is Common Red Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata), and the yellow is Balsam Ragwort (Senecio pauperculis).


That's its for now folks, stay tuned for the next segments of my cross country voyage!

Happy hunting

- Katherine

Spring is Here, and so are The Wildcrafting Workshops!

Hey Wildcrafters,

It was been a while since I've updated my blog here, I have been pretty active through my facebook page.

But I figured I should also be active here for my non-facebook friends.

So far this season I have taught two workshops, one for the Junior Master Gardeners Program at The Horticultural Centre of the Pacific last Thursday. This was a group of 20 children ages 5 to 11 who were keen on gardening and plants in general. This was my first time teaching a group of such young children and I really enjoyed it, I look forward to working with kids in the future. Sadly I was so busy teaching I only managed to snap a couple photos, here is one of our finished Salad we all gathered, and a dressing I put together using wild berries, onions and grand fir.

The other workshop I taught at was this amazing Event put on by Gather Victoria this last Sunday called simply called Urban Wild Food Walk, although it was much much more then that. We took a group of 16 people (there was meant to be 20, but the pouring rain and wind meant a few didn't show up) on a walk around Bamfield park looking at the edible plants growing wild there and then when everyone was good and wet we all went inside for some grand fir tea, and the most amazing wild crafted tasting menu I have ever seen. If you have facebook, check out the photos from the event.

I posted a few here as well:
here we are all standing in the rain, you can see I'm obviously the best dressed for the weather in my cotton hoodie...

And here is the amazing tasting menu we enjoyed after:

As you can see, it was one epic event!



I've got a couple of other fun events coming up this spring, the first is Wild Spring Salads, March 28th at the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific from 1-4pm
We will be wandering the Western Woods for this workshop gathering salad greens and learning how to identify them, then head back to their lunch room to clean and prepare our salad, finishing the workshop off by devouring our harvest with some completely wild crafted salad dressing I will prepare before hand (may contain ants ;) ) there will be an olive oil vinaigrette for those not interested in trying the wild dressing.
Here is all the information, contact The HCP to register.


This event and all other I teach at the HPC is cheaper if you become a member of The HPC for 42.50 a year, this also allows you free admission to their gardens anytime, and gives you discounts to a number of nurseries around town, so is a great investment if you're into gardening!

This is a Salad a made about a month ago using some plants I found while out on my bike, my family really enjoyed it:

My other event is 6-part Sustainable Foraging class I am hosting at Swan Lake coming up April 14th through May 25th

This will be an in-depth class teaches ethno botany of the Victoria area, plant identification skills, modern foraging practices; including sustainability and safety, and then will include several plant walks discussing ID characteristics of numerous food plants, including trees, herbs, roots and berries/fruits. When you finish this class you should have a good grasp on foraging and be confident enough to go out on your own and forage anytime of year!


Here is all the information including how to register.

As usual I have spent a lot of time outside photographing wildflowers, so here are a couple of my favorite to finish off this entry:
The well known, and easily spotted in almost any woodland around here White Fawn Lily (Erythronium oregonum)!

One of our earliest wildflowers, the beautiful but poisonous Stain Flower (Sisyrinchium douglasii):

A shrub I have never seen before in the wild: ribes lobbii, or the Gummy goose berry. What beautiful flowers!

This guy isn't a flower, but he sure is cool, he's a rough skinned newt, read about them here

Well, that's it for toward, Happy foraging, and watch out for those beautiful wild flowers if you find yourself off the trail!

- Katherine