Wild Food Profile – Eastern Hemlock Buds: Fresh Eating, Tea, and Eastern Hemlock Bud Dressing

The Druid's Garden

Eastern Hemlock is one of my very favorite trees. The tall, regal personal, the needles and branches that offer a bluish light beneath them as the sun shines, the cathedral-like quality of the ancient ones. This time of year, you can see the bright green buds on the Eastern Hemlock that represent the growth of the tree for this season. As the buds grow older, they darken to the beautiful viridian green that is characteristic of the Eastern Hemlock tree. But, for the short window of time when the trees are budding–right now–Eastern Hemlock buds are a delicious treat.

Harvesting Eastern Hemlock buds

We happen to have many of these trees on our property, and some of the branches are starting to grow into our paths and have to be trimmed back. There are thousands of beautiful tiny green buds on each of the branches to be trimmed, which…

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Getting Magic

Making Acorn Ink – Instructions and Recipes

The Druid's Garden

Acorn Ink! (Great color!)

Acorn ink, derived from the mighty oak tree, can be a wonderful addition to your druid practice or art studio. Inks can be used for all manner of useful things, from drawing and artwork to the creation of sigils, writing in a druid’s journal, or engaging in other magical work. In this post, I’ll share a method for making an acorn ink as well as a rust garden (that you can use to strengthen the color of this and other natural inks, like walnut). I’m posting this now because I have found that acorns are best gathered for this not right after they drop, but after they’ve sat on the ground for some time (such as over the winter months). This is a way for you to use acorns pretty much year-round, connect deeply to the energy of the oak tree, and localize your practice.

Ink…

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Be On The Lookout For This Elusive & Bizarre Edible Mushroom

Greetings,

Over the next few months, a strange wild mushroom will manifest from the trunks of oaks and other deciduous trees. At first glance, this fungus resembles a scarlet-colored spaceship. Upon closer inspection, however, and especially upon internal inspection, this mushroom literally looks like raw meat.

The Beefsteak Polypore is a mushroom unlike any other. In some parts of Europe, this species is considered rare. Here in North America, summer and autumn sightings of the Beefsteak Polypore aren’t infrequent, though they’re not incredibly common either. The underside of this mushroom is comprised of tiny tubes that aren’t connected to one another, and the mushroom’s taste is mildly acidic… almost reminiscent of a tangy portobello mushroom.

Needless to say, the Beefsteak Polypore is one mushroom worth adding to your must-see list of 2020.

To learn more about this fascinating fungus, you can view the following video for the next few days. This video is one of over 70 exclusive videos featured in Foraging Wild Mushrooms — a four-season online course designed to help you confidently and successfully forage wild mushrooms.

Registration for Foraging Wild Mushrooms is open until Monday, May 25th at midnight. After May 25th, registration will be closed.

If you’ve ever considered harvesting wild mushrooms but didn’t know where to start, or where to go, or how to discern between edible and poisonous species, Foraging Wild Mushrooms will equip you with the skills necessary to ensure that your harvests are safe and successful.

To get a sneak peek into the kinds of content found within the course, please enjoy this video.

A portion of all proceeds derived from course sales will be donated to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy — a nonprofit organization whose mission it is to protect and restore exceptional places and forests for the benefit of present and future generations.

Thanks for reading and watching, and thanks for your continued support.

-Adam Haritan

New Moon in Taurus Lunar Report | Entering the Honey Moon Cycle

New Moon in Taurus | Honey Moon Cycle Energy Report

New moons offer us opportunities to refresh and begin again. This new moon gives us a burst of rejuvenating energy to help us get out of the restless slump we have been feeling during the pandemic. You might feel some initiative towards beginning new projects, or a burst of energy towards recommitting to past projects.

This new moon is in both Taurus and Gemini depending on your location and time zone, so expect to feel a little bit of both of these signs during this new moon period. This new moon holds energy of recovering, healing and rebuilding. Taurus energy can help you nurture yourself while Gemini will help you find new ways to express yourself.

Spirit de la Lune New Moon in Taurus Lunar Report | Entering the Honey Moon Cycle

This new moon cycle is also leading us into the Eclipse season of 2020. We have an eclipse happening on the 5th for the Full Moon. This is an excellent time to make some new intentions centered around rebuilding yourself and recovering. It’s a great time to begin new projects, question old habits and being to build the life you want for yourself.

We have Mercury retrograde coming up this month as well, joining Venus in retrograde for a short time. This can cause some confusion with your personal relationships. This new moon and honey moon cycle is a generally positive one though bringing in new opportunities and movement towards goals.

Each new moon, using our planners and decks we create the lunar report to help us navigate the new lunar cycle ahead.

Read original post at: Spirit de la Lune ~ New Moon in Taurus Lunar Report | Entering the Honey Moon Cycle

Foraging Wild Mushrooms — Online Course Is Open For Enrollment

Greetings,

I’m very excited to announce that Foraging Wild Mushrooms is open for enrollment for the next 7 days.

This 4-season online course is designed to help you safely, successfully, and confidently forage wild mushrooms from the forest, from the field, and even from your own backyard.

Whether you’re interested in foraging for food, for medicine, for study, or just for fun, Foraging Wild Mushrooms covers the most important lessons to get you started.

In addition to over 70 step-by-step exclusive and instructional videos included within the course, you’ll also receive:

Supplemental handouts covering mushroom anatomy, terminology, and biology that you can download and print for easy viewing.
A 42-page guide to medicinal mushrooms that summarizes the latest research on the most popular medicinal fungi and features over 75 peer-reviewed references.
Immediate and lifetime access to all materials.

Additionally, I’m equally excited to let you know that a portion of all proceeds derived from course sales will be donated to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy — a nonprofit organization whose mission it is to protect and restore exceptional places and forests for the benefit of present and future generations.

Since 1932, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has protected more than a quarter-million acres of natural places. To express gratitude, and to ensure that these and many more wild places exist for generations to come, I find it imperative to support organizations that in turn directly support the land.

Therefore, a portion of all proceeds derived from this enrollment period will be donated to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy for use in land conservation.

Please note that enrollment for Foraging Wild Mushrooms is open for one week only — from today until Monday, May 25th at midnight. After that, enrollment will be closed.

To learn more about the course, check out this video which gives an overview of what you can expect.

I hope to see you in there!
—Adam Haritan

Forest Regeneration at the Druid’s Garden Homestead: Forest Hugelkultur, Replanting and More!

The Druid's Garden

Red Elder – helping the forest recover

The property was almost perfect: in the right location, a natural spring as a water source, a small and nice house with a huge hearth, areas for chickens and gardens, a small pond and a stream bordering the edge of the property….pretty much everything was exactly what we hoped. Except for one thing: right before selling the property, the previous owners did some logging for profit, taking out most of the mature overstory of trees on 3 of the 5 acres. This left the forest in a very damaged place: cut down trees, lots of smaller limbs and brush, often piled up more than 5-8 feet high in places. I remember when I went to look at the property and started walking the land and just saying, “Why would they do this?” It hurt my heart. Could I live here, seeing what had…

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6 Scientifically Validated Reasons To Eat Mushrooms

Greetings,

The spring mushroom season is well underway for many of us, and although morels have called it quits in more than a few parts of the country, plenty of additional edible mushrooms will faithfully appear over the next several months.

In anticipation of the late spring/early summer mushroom season, I’m excited to announce that registration for my online course will open on Monday, May 18th.

Foraging Wild Mushrooms is a four-season course designed to help you confidently and successfully forage wild mushrooms. This course is presented entirely online and it features over 70 exclusive videos that cover all the essentials for beginner-level mushroom hunters, including mushroom ecology; mushroom biology; common edible mushrooms; medicinal mushrooms; poisonous mushrooms; cooking techniques; medicine-making; and more.

Registration for Foraging Wild Mushrooms will be open for one week only, from midnight on May 18th to Monday, May 25th. After May 25th, registration will be closed.

Upon registration, you can watch the videos at your own pace and you will have access to the course forever.

If you are interested in signing up for Foraging Wild Mushrooms, mark your calendar for Monday, May 18th and visit this link. All additional information — including course outline and tuition — will be posted on Monday.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following video featuring 6 scientifically validated reasons to eat mushrooms. This video is one of the lessons included in Foraging Wild Mushrooms, and while all content within the course is available only to registered students, I thought I’d share this video with you because of the pertinent information contained within it.

Thanks for reading and watching, and I hope to see you on May 18th!

-Adam Haritan

Are You A Forager? New Forager Course — Good Witches Homestead

As herbalists, we have a lot of passions, and foraging is top of the list! With spring in full swing and summer inching closer, we are enjoying our foraging forays and plan for even more time in the fields and forests as the green world bursts into a riot of growth! To make the most […]

via Are You A Forager? New Forager Course — Good Witches Homestead