America’s Unexpected Tree Diversity Hotspot

First: A big thank you to everyone who organized and attended the wonderful Field & Fork event in western Pennsylvania.

It was a lovely evening of delicious food, great conversation, and beautiful scenery. I enjoyed discussing a few ideas that don’t usually make their way into my videos, including some of the more powerful effects that nature has on human beings.

Moving forward: I recently took a last-minute trip to the southeastern United States.

In addition to surprising my uncle for his 65th birthday, I admired all the trees I don’t usually see back home in Pennsylvania: water tupelo, willow oak, southern red oak, loblolly pine, shortleaf pine, sugarberry, and dozens of others.

I eventually lost count of all the trees I saw. As it turns out, there was a good reason for that: more native tree species grow in the Southeast than in any other region of the contiguous United States.

But why?

Why is the Southeast so special? And why don’t other regions of the U.S. — like the Northeast, the Midwest, or the Pacific Northwest — support such an incredible variety of native trees?

In my newest video, I dive into the fascinating story behind the Southeast’s remarkable tree diversity.

You can watch it here.

Thanks for reading and watching.

— Adam Haritan

Mary’s Gold: Calendula Sun Cake

Mary’s Gold: Calendula Sun Cake

The Surprising Rise Of A Native Tree

In my neck of the woods, there’s a particular tree that grows in the understory.

It’s not a very big tree, but it’s doing something that has recently caught my attention: It’s becoming much more abundant.

On the surface, this looks like a wonderful thing.

Known as pawpaw (Asimina triloba), this native tree produces a highly prized edible fruit. It also serves as a host plant for the zebra swallowtail.

But looks can be deceiving.

The recent increase in pawpaw numbers may actually reflect broader, deeper changes within eastern forests.

What are these changes, and why exactly is pawpaw winning in the 21st century?

In a brand-new video, I visit a humid, buggy bottomland forest to explore these questions.

You can watch the video here.

Thanks for reading and watching!

— Adam Haritan

I Never Expected To See This Oak

Imagine spending over a decade with the same group of friends, only to discover a stranger had been among you the entire time.

This recently happened to me, but it didn’t involve humans.

It involved oaks.

For more than a decade, I’d been visiting the same patch of woods near my home. I thought I knew all the trees there, but I guess I was wrong.

One day, I came across an oak I’d never noticed before. It didn’t look like the other oaks, and it left me with many more questions than answers.

Of course, I filmed the experience to show you this unusual tree.

Do you have any idea what kind of oak this is?

You can watch the brand-new video here.

Thanks for reading and watching (and thanks for any input you can provide)!

— Adam Haritan

Even I Got Confused Out There

I have two updates: a special live event next month, and a brand-new video on an iconic forest plant.

First up: On Tuesday, July 21, I’ll be speaking at a unique, immersive event called Field & Fork.

This is a multi-sensory farm-to-table dinner and ecology experience hosted by Plant it Further at the scenic 80-acre Lodge at Water’s Edge in Portersville, Pennsylvania.

I’ll be speaking alongside Cornell Master Beekeeper Christina Joy Neumann, and we’ll all be sharing a beautifully crafted seasonal dinner.

If you want to slow down, talk forest ecology, eat incredible local food, and connect in person, I would love to see you there.

Click here for details and tickets to Field & Fork.

Next up: Ginseng.

Recently, I thought about a forest I visited 8 years ago, and I wondered if two American ginseng plants were still growing there.

To get an answer, I decided to visit the forest and see for myself.

The only problem was that I never dropped a pin on a map, and I wasn’t sure exactly where I found the plants 8 years ago. But after an hour of intense searching under a canopy of tulip tree and red maple, I finally found them.

“What luck!” I thought to myself.

Interestingly, I was also surprised to see quite a few other plants that looked like ginseng. Some of these lookalikes were even growing right next to the real thing.

This made me wonder: If I’m getting confused out here, I’ll bet other people are too.

So, I decided to film a video breaking down how to spot a few ginseng lookalikes, as well as how to identify true American ginseng in the wild.

You can watch the brand-new video here.

Thanks for watching, and I hope to see some of you in July!

— Adam Haritan

Spring Greens as a Nourishing and Healing Food

Spring Greens as a Nourishing and Healing Food

A Wheel of Deepening Land Healing through Sacred Gardens and Refugia, Part I

A Wheel of Deepening Land Healing through Sacred Gardens and Refugia, Part I

The Ultimate Guide to Chestnut Harvesting, Roasting, and Chestnut Flour

Here on Turtle Island, from the dawn of time until about a hundred years ago, Chestnuts were a staple food crop for all life, including human life. A nutritious and carbohydrate-rich nut, Chestnut trees produce a bumper crop of nuts every 1-3 years (mast years), are very easy to harvest, can be eaten fresh off the tree, and are easy to process into a wide range of versatile dishes. You can eat them fresh, roast or boil them, add them to soups or stews, dry them and grind them up to make flour which can be turned into bread, crepes, cookies, and more. In fact, as far as foods go, I would argue they are one of the very best for long-term sustainability, ecological support, and filling hungry bellies. As a perennial treecrop, Chestnuts can be a staple part of a regenerative and ecologically-focused food forest (for an example of them being used as part of a larger regenerative agriculture system, you can read Mark Sheppard’s Restoration Agriculture). They have such great promise for transitioning away from fossil-fuel-based agriculture and embracing regenerative approaches to life.

Dana O’Driscoll

The Ultimate Guide to Chestnut Harvesting, Roasting, and Chestnut Flour

Mace—December’s Herb of the Month

By Maryann Readal

Mace and nutmeg inside of the fresh fruit

Mace: The Elegant Twin of Nutmeg

Mace is a wonderfully unique spice. It derives from the Myristica fragrans tree and is native to Indonesia’s Banda Islands—the legendary “Spice Islands”—though it is now also cultivated in Grenada and other tropical regions. You can’t talk about mace without mentioning its twin, nutmeg, because, even though they are different spices, they grow together hidden inside the fruit of the Myristica tree. When the fruit is ripe, it splits open to reveal the seed (nutmeg), which is covered in a delicate, lacy, red membrane, called the aril, otherwise known as mace.

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Elderberry – November’s Herb of the Month

By Maryann Readal

Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) is an herb of many faces. In spring, its white, lacy blossoms brighten woodlands and hedgerows, attracting bees and butterflies with their sweet fragrance. By autumn, those delicate blooms transform into heavy clusters of deep purple berries — a feast for birds, wildlife, and humans alike. Every part of the elder — flowers, berries, leaves, and even wood — has long been treasured for food, craft, and healing.

A Storied Past

The story of elderberry stretches back to the Ice Age, between 12,000 and 9,000 BCE, when glaciers carried its seeds across North America, Europe, and Asia. By 2000 BCE, early peoples were already cultivating the plant for its medicinal and culinary gifts.

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