Had the coolest IDea…. Since identifying a plant accurately is sort of KEY in the wild business… I am always trying to find ways to make it easier to learn and remember. Photos are great but sometimes they are confusing unless the plant being showcased is filmed against a contrasting background. Drawing a picture is helpful, more for the exercise in observation and awareness, but my drawings don’t look anything like the real deal. I’ve tried pressing the leaves under stacks of encyclopedias but that takes a long time and the leaves are brittle to work with..
What to do?
Well, I got the idea from my obsession with sending ‘pretty’ care packages to friends and family. Whether it’s Autumn leaves, Spring greens or Summer flowers I love to decorate them with these green gifts sealing in their beauty with packing tape. Not yet sure how long they last but they sure look happy to the recipient!
In preparing for my Wild Foods Survival Workshop I kept thinking how I can best pass on my knowledge to these people to help them make it their own and I came up with Wild Bags! They are easy to make and look pretty cool. We can even have contests to see which ‘team’ can collect one of each leaf first (with two identical bags, that is)
While foraging this morning I got the idea of having bags with different ID purposes. Such as a bag with only:
- edible tree leaves
- edible root leaves
- Spring greens
- Summer edible flowers
- the possibilities are endless…. 🙂
I label each wild gift with it’s common name and it’s botanical name.
So whether they last long or not, I am having FUN. Oh and some of the flowers such as the lovely Buttercup are NOT edible, just felt compelled to put them in for ‘color’. In the future, I will ONLY put wild edibles on my wild ID bags. Promise!
Wild blessings abound! Holly
