If you’re just picking up a foraging basket for the first time, what a truly special moment. I’m willing to bet that getting to know your local food and medicine plants (and bringing them home to your kitchen and apothecary) will be one of the most meaningful experiences of your life.

When I first began foraging my own food and medicine, I focused on a particular array of plentiful, generous, and nourishing plants—the wild weeds, the common flora, and the invasives. I strongly encourage you to do the same! These plants are some of our most superb medicinal allies and nutrient-dense wild foods. And these feral botanicals continue to be my main squeezes: non-native, “weedy” medicinals and wild foods are the most sustainable options out there.

And to sweeten the deal, they grow prolifically throughout the temperate world, so they are easy to find and befriend. Believe me, making connections with these plants is a bit like working a magic spell—one that reveals a generous landscape literally blooming with food and medicine.

But wait! Before you venture off into paradise, please ready yourself to partake of the cornucopia. You will need a proper set of resources to begin your foraging adventures safely and wisely. Tools, field guides, an ethical conscience, and some education on sustainable wildcrafting are all requisite (or at least very highly recommended). We’ve got you covered on each of these points; just pick and choose as needed from our list of articles below: