Have you ever wondered what’s growing right in your yard that you can eat or use medicinally?
If you have anything green growing around you, odds are pretty good we can find something useful in your yard.
Books and field guides are an invaluable tool, and very important to use for confirming an identification before consuming. They can also be overwhelming when you don’t even know where to start.
Online videos are fun! They’ll show images and teach what habitat a certain item grows in. They’ll show potentially dangerous lookalikes, too.
But nothing beats having experienced eyeballs evaluate an item right in front of you. This way you can physically see it, touch it, and observe characteristics about it and where it grows. And knowing where things grow in your own yard is like extending your pantry – year after year you’ll know right where to find whatever you need.
My foraging skills did not take off until I took my first live classes. It was just too hard for me to figure out these random, interesting things I saw growing. I couldn’t figure out if I couldn’t identify it because I was using the guide wrong, or because it wasn’t worth eating and not in the guide at all!
But once you know, you know.
It is useful to have live foraging instruction several times throughout the year.
Many plants and mushrooms available and delicious in May or June will be gone or unusable by July or August. And in September, different plants, mushrooms and fruits will be available than you’ll find in October. Some wild edibles are available for only 2-3 weeks in the whole year!
Cost will vary depending on travel distance, class size and duration but starts at $85 for up to an hour of instruction within a 20-minute radius of Bangor. You will, of course, keep all specimens we find and be able to take as many photos as you’d like along the way.