Honorable Harvesting of Wild Plants with Spoonful Herbals

by Kara Buchanan, co-director, Spoonful Herbals

As spring awakens and the plants are popping their heads out of the ground and flower buds are bursting on shrubs and trees, herbalists and foragers are excited to gather their green goodness after a long winter without. There is so much wild food and medicine growing just outside or backdoors and learning to know them, utilize them and help sustain them is a lifelong effort of love. Spoonful Herbals is a nonprofit herbal education organization and longtime Rock Point Commons partner, and we strive to help folks learn more about their gifted plant neighbors and spread that love and care.

As part of the curriculum of our 6-month Community Herbalism Apprenticeship Program, now in its 9th year, much attention is directed to the plants that grow readily and share abundantly, on our local landscape. Many of these plants might be labelled “invasive” but we suggest terms like “opportunistic” and “highly adaptable”. Some of our favorites include Dandelion, Stinging Nettles, Violets and Plantain. Rock Point is also home to some rare and endangered plants that are concerningly popular with foragers. Being very specific in their soil quality and moisture needs, these plants rely on specific ecological situations to survive, let alone thrive. A prime example is the threatened Ostrich “Fiddlehead” Fern. It is equally important to us to teach about sustaining and stewarding these threatened plants.

As part of the apprenticeship, we dive into the teachings of Robin Wall Kimmer, indigenous scientist, through her beautiful book “ Braiding Sweetgrass ”. She shares that, while passed down through oral tradition and direct teaching in her indigenous culture, the principles of the “ Honorable Harvest ” could be written, shared and embraced by all of us. We hope you will consider bringing these principles into your considerations and intentions to harvest plants from the wild.

Spoonful Herbals offers plant walks and workshops throughout the season to help people learn about and identify both abundant and rare local plants, and the many that fall somewhere along this spectrum. Our Wildcrafters Guild offers the opportunity to meet twice monthly, to learn to properly identify and how to use plants throughout the growing season, May - October in the Burlington area. Visit our website to register and sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of any page to stay up to date about all our offerings and programs.

On May 17, from 10am -1pm , we will hold our annual Plant Swap and Sale, open to the community and rich in culinary and medicinal plant offerings, the swap welcomes all sorts of plants, and is a great way to share those “opportunistic” perennials from your garden or extra seedlings you started. You can also come just to shop, no swapping necessary. This event is a primary fundraiser for our small non-profit organization and an opportunity for us to assemble donations packages of plants to share with local school and community garden organizations in need (we are accepting requests!)

Spoonful Herbals stewards the Rooted Heart Rising garden, our primary teaching and medicine growing space at Rock Point Commons. We welcome your visits to meet the plants and herbalists there throughout the season.