Opening up registration for the early summer foraging walk! June 27th at 11am!
 So many plants in various stages of growth right now allowing for diverse harvesting.  The idea of the walk is to allow folks to smell, feel and get their eyes on plants in real time. Everyone will get a booklet of everything we went over, including identification features like the leaf shape, vein patterns, flower structure (shape and arrangement, stamen and pistil characteristics ect), fruit type (color, seed dispersal mechanisms, shapes), and stem shapes (branching patterns ect) to refer back to.
Many of these plants and mushrooms will be on this walk. Some wont depending on weather but they will all be in your booklet.
If there is no burn ban in place, we will have a fire on the beach after to go over any questions, and cook a meal out of our harvests with venison over the fire.
Trees & shrubs
-Gray alder- leaves, bark & catkins
-Choke cherry- leaves, flowers, bark & berries
-Black cherry- inner bark
-Red pine- needles, tips, pollen and male cones
-Sand dune willow- bark & leaves
-Narrow leaf willow- bark & leaves
-High Bush Cranberry- inner bark & fruits
-Rowan- leaves, flowers 
-Birch- leaves and bark
-Fir- needles, tips & pitch
-Wild Apple- leaves, flowers and bark
-Cedar- leaves
-Elderberry- Flowers, leaves and bark
-Barberry- roots
-Rose- flowers, leaves 
Brambles
-Red Raspberry- leaf
-Blackberry- leaves
-Black Currants- leaves & fruits
Herbaceous Plants
-Marsh Bedstraw- leaves & seeds
-Sweet Gale- aerial parts
-Yellow toadflax- aerial parts
-White turtle head- aerial parts
-Queen Ann's lace- seeds
-Wood avens- roots
-Beach Pea- shoots, pea pods & flowers
-Joe Pye Weed- aerial parts & roots
-Soapwart- bouncing bet- roots
-Mullein- aerial parts & roots
-Jewelweed- aerial parts
-Boneset- aerial parts
-Plantain- leaf
-Watercress- aerial parts
-Wild Mint- aerial parts
-Goldenrod- aerial parts
-Nettles- leaves 
-Yarrow- aerial parts & roots
-Cattail- seed head and rhizomes
-Asters- aerial parts & roots
-Milkweed- flower buds
-Horsetail- aerial parts
-Dwarf Red Blackberry- berries, leaves & roots
-Violet- leaves
-Arrowhead- Tubers
-Evening primrose- roots & aerial parts
-Blue Vervain- flowers & leaves
-St Johns Wort- leaves and flowers
-Ghost Pipe
Mushrooms & Fungi
-Oyster mushrooms
-Pheasant back
-Chicken of the woods
We'll also talk about some plants that carry some toxicity like:
-Clematis
-Wild Parsnip
-Nightshade
-Dogwood
-Bindweed
-Canadian anemone
Foraging is like learning to read another language. I like to compare it to when you learn to read. Before you know how to read, you see signs and text everywhere but don't actually know what it says and don't pay any mind to it as a child. Once you learn how to read, your brain automatically processes letters into words with meanings and you just know what things say, without even realizing it most of the time. And always for the rest of your life, learning new words and meanings.
Foraging opens up an entire new world, the woods doesn't just look like greenery anymore. Everything becomes individuals, with names and a history behind them and I hope I can help folks unlock this language.