Urban Nature: A Foraging Field Trip

Central Park provides a great window into the world of wild foods of mid-spring. It's the peak of the season for wild salad greens, and we'll be finding great quantities of renewable ingredients: Spicy mustard greens, such as garlicky garlic mustard, hot hedge mustard, and even hotter poor man's pepper, will abound on lawns or under trees anywhere,...

A great abundance of edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms makes this park a great place for edible and medicinal plants and mushrooms in late summer. Burdock, an expensive detoxifying herb sold in health food stores, abounds in cultivated areas throughout the park. You can also use this invasive species as a superb root vegetable, or even...

With woodland trails, a lake, and recreation areas, this is a great place for wild foods in late fall. Some fruits are good to eat in late fall.  Autumn Olive Berries At this time of the year, we’ll be enjoying the sweet-tart autumn olive berries, which grow in unlimited quantity near the entrance to the parking lot. These red, spherical,...

Central Park provides a great window into the world of wild foods in  early spring. Making a meal with these plants is simple at this time of the year. For an appetizer, try simmering field garlic bulbs in diluted vinegar with Italian seasonings, to make an outstanding pickle. It's the peak of the season for wild salad greens, and we'll be finding...

The sunny borders between woodlands and the parking lot provide prime habitat for various wild herbs and greens. We'll look for sheep sorrel and wood sorrel, with their wonderful lemony flavors, plus goutweed, which tastes like parsley, carrots, and celery. Poor man's pepper, a common, delicious wild mustard, also appears in great abundance in sunny...

When the trees have dropped their leaves and there is a chill in the air, there are still many things to see in the woods and wide open spaces. Join wild foods author and forager author Marie Viljoen for a brisk walk in the garden to discover and identify edible, fragrant, and useful plants, such as juniper, spicebush, and bayberry in their winter...

With a lakeside, cultivated areas, picnic grounds, and woods, Belmont Lake State Park is a great place for wild foods in late winter, and everything the group will be finding is renewable. The plants repeatedly get trimmed down by lawn mowers, but they’re adapted to defend themselves by regeneration. Many of the foreign plants here are also invasive. ...