7 Steps for Transitioning to Wild

I've been getting emails from people across North America about wildcrafting. Some ask for help identifying a plant, but many questions centre around transitioning from a consumer to a producer. People want to know how to buy less and eat more from the land, whether they are gardening or eating wild food in their neighbourhood. These are my tips:

1. Grow your own food, and grow what you like. You can start small or go big. You don't even need a yard. A friend of mine grew her entire garden in containers while she lived in a small basement suite. When she and her husband bought their house, they created a beautiful garden where the lawn used to be. You can grow on windowsills, on pathways, grow herbs, veggies, even fruit. Just start growing right now. I don't care what the season is. I don't care if you have no seeds. Take a seed from the apple you are eating and plant it in a bit of earth and see what happens. Just do it!

2. Learn what is wild and edible in your area. Go for a walk every morning or afternoon and make a point of learning one new plant a week. This will get easier as time goes on, when you can identify what "family" a plant belongs to. Read books, talk to neighbours, experts, and gardeners. Just one new plant a week, minimum. By the end of a year, you will have 50 plants stored in your memory! Then, find out what you can do with them!

3. Don't forget about the garden plants. Many "ornamental" plants are edible, though many are toxic. Rosehips, the seed pods grown as roses bloom and die, come to mind, as does Lady's Mantle. Rosehips are rich in vitamin C, and Lady's Mantle is a great smoothie herb that can ease menstrual distress.

4. Start replacing and adding. If you drink green smoothies, stop buying commercially-grown spinach and pick some dandelion greens instead. Not only are they more nutritious, but they are free! Instead of bananas shipped overseas, use wild blackberries. Add wild greens to soups and stews for some colour, bulk, and a nutrition boost. Instead of kale chips, make wild plantain chips, or burdock chips. Roast dandelion roots with your potatoes, or use burdock root, or even thistle root. Just start replacing what you buy with what you find/grow, or adding to existing meals.

5. Learn how to store food. My favourite preservation methods are low-temperature dehydration in my Excalibur, and freezing in the deep freeze (bought for $50 on Craigslist). I also have a Food Saver, which is a vacuum-seal bag thingamajig. A few hours of picking in the height of blackberry season last year yielded three giant bags of blackberries that I still haven't finished. They freeze very well. A few weeks ago, I collected and dried a huge amount of nettle. Strawberries dry very well and are great in homemade granola! I have bags of chestnuts in my freezer, too, along with bags of wild smoothie greens. There is a giant bag of dried tomatoes from last year's harvest in my pantry, too.

6. Try Raw Vegan. Seriously. Being raw has made this journey so much easier. It is easy to eat wild when you are enjoying salads for supper, raw soups, plantain chips, and frozen berries!

7. Don't get overwhelmed. Man didn't become a consumer overnight (it would have looked like insanity to "primitive" Man!) and it will take some time to reprogram your mind. Just learn a little more, experiment, and strive to do more each day.

Happy harvesting!