Wild Edible Foods Foraging & Herbal Medicine Making Workshop
Details
Saturday, April 12th, 2025 from 9:30-5:30 at Blue Skye Farm in Puyallup WA and continuing into the wilds to learn when and where to look for the Top Wild Foods and Top Medicinal Plants of our region. Your cost is $195 including all materials. To register additional friends and family members, use Promo Code ADDITIONALFRIENDSFAM for $45 off their fees.
On our journey, you’ll learn how to identify key plant families, we’ll discuss and practice honorable harvesting methods as we select the plant parts we need for wild crafted recipes later in the day. We’ll also cover poisonous look-a-likes and wildcrafting safety. When we return to Blue Skye Farm, we’ll process and cook what we’ve collected into yummy treats, and prepare herbal remedies, with stations including:
- Station 1: Herbal Oil, Alcohol Intermediary & Salve Options: Plantain, Poplar Buds, Yarrow, Calendula, Lavendar
- Station 2: Alcohol Tincture Options: Vanilla, Oregon Grape, Usnea Lichen
- Station 3: Glycerite Options: Mints & More
- Station 4: Vinegars/Oxymel Options: Nutritional Dock Root, Pickled Garden Veggies
- Station 5: Teas/Infusions: Pine Family Needles for Vitamin C, Dried Nettles for Allergies/Immunity, Pineapple Weed as American Chamomile, Various Blue Skye Farm Medicinal Herbs
- Station 6: Syrup & Soda Options: Elderberry, Lemonbalm, Catnip
- Station 7: Sautes & Chip Options: Cattail Rhizomes, Dandelion Flowers, Nettle Leaves, Pine/Oak Bark
- Station 8: Nut Milk & Dessert Options: Cashew Milk, Hazelnut Milk & Truffles
- Station 9: Cooking Options: Nettle Soup, Nettle Pesto, Wild Edibles Gathered
- Station 10: Ethnobotany Books & Wildcrafting Supplies
“It was a relaxed group of participants with varying degrees of outdoors experience. Throughout the day, we learned about the uses of local plants for survival. Chris encouraged active learning among the group with his careful explanations on how to harvest and consume plants on the trail in a sustainable way. We spent the second half of the day at Chris and Kim’s farm, where we saw how to make a fire, soup bowls, and boiled nettle stew using nothing but wood and stone. We also used freshly harvested ingredients to make tinctures and balms that we took home in sample jars. As another eloquent attendee put it, learning how to survive in nature makes it possible to walk out of your home and feel like you’re walking into your living room. By the end of this meetup, sitting by our fire and drinking nettle soup, I had tasted the possibilities of living in the wilderness, and was ready to come back to learn survival skills in more serious detail.” – Samual Wan 2010/03/05
## FAQs
What ages can participate? Workshops are designed for adults, but youth may enroll with a parent/guardian.
How should we prepare for the workshop? Please prepare as you normally would for a hike, including snacks, lunch, water bottle, 10 essentials, etc., but especially with appropriate clothing including rain gear and waterproof footwear. Also, if you don’t already have any plant field guides, consider the following that we’ll also have on hand:
– Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and MacKinnon, et al
– Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel
– Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs – A Beginner’s Guide
– Picture This app to supplement Seek for plant identification
COVID-19 safety measures
Wild Edible Foods Foraging & Herbal Medicine Making Workshop