Sustainable Wild Collection Protects People, Plants, and Animals

Chances are, you’re deeply connected with wild plants and don’t even realize it.

All of us in countless ways, whether we recognize it or not, are deeply connected to wild collecting.

Wild plants, as the term suggests, aren’t grown on farms. Instead, they’re collected in meadows, forests and deserts. Since ancient times, they’ve served as natural and essential ingredients in foods, fibers, dyes, cosmetics and traditional medicines.

Consider the açai berries in your super smoothie. They’re wild collected in the Brazilian Amazon. The pure maple syrup you save for special breakfasts most likely comes from the forests of Canada or the northern regions of the United States. The candelilla wax in your favorite skin care products originates in the deserts of northern Mexico. The licorice root used in candies and lozenges could be wild collected in many places — Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. And at Wildwood Enterprises, more…

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Wild Foods and Foraging

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

It’s all rainy days, low slung clouds, and rain on tin-roofs around the Gunnison Valley these days—a much needed, thirst-quenching storm has arrived and settled in. A perfect excuse for warm coffee, bouquets of flowers on the table, and a book, of course.

It’s also a great time to get well-versed in the foraging dos and don’ts. There is plenty to learn in the way of safety, sustainability, legalities, terms, and botany in the world of foraging, and its best to have at least a cursory grasp on these things before heading out, wicker basket and clippers in hand.

Today, a word on foraging safety, considerations, and a note on common poisonous plants to the mountain states. All of which, can be found in Briana’s new book Mountain States Foraging, a guidebook to wild edibles in the mountain west.

Foraging for Briana has been a lifeline to a wild…

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Elderberry’s | Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism

Good Witches Homestead

CSCH is thrilled to begin the process of creating an Herbal Healing Center at Elderberry’s, a delightful 4-acre farm in Paonia, Colorado! Experience traditional Nature Cure and Vitalist therapeutics among the gardens, herb beds, fruit trees, and wildlands nearby.

Source: Elderberry’s | Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism

Elderberry’s is home to a charming, periwinkle-blue 1908 farmhouse, graced with Peach, Plum, and Apple trees, where chickens free-range among organic vegetable and herb gardens. Our botanical sanctuary is on the edge of town, in a quiet, peaceful, varied landscape with huge Cottonwood trees shading the lawns. It’s the perfect place to shed the chaos of city life and recharge your vitality. Eat fresh food right from local farms and gardens and rest in the camping meadow under brilliant stars or stay in one of our tiny houses. Find yourself at home among healing waters, where the Minnesota creek and mountain snowmelt converge…

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The Forager’s: Skunkbush Profile

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Rhus trilobata

Also, Known As:

Aromatic Sumac
Basketbush
Fragrant Sumac
Ill-scented Sumac
Scented Sumac
Skunkbush
Skunkbush Sumac
Squawbush

Skunkbush (scientific name Rhus trilobata) is a low-growing, bushy shrub belonging to the sumac genus. Also known as sour berry or three-leaf sumac, it grows up to a height of anything between 2 feet and 6 feet. This shrub is found growing in clumps in rocky terrains all through a different section of the eastern United States. The leaves of this shrub are trifoliate (hence the common name three-leaf sumac), which appear on an inch-long stalk. The leaflets of skunkbush appear directly from the stems (sessile) and are covered with very fine, short hairs (pubescence) when they are young. Compared to the lateral leaflets, the terminal leaflet is significantly large, measuring about 1 inch to 2 inches long and roughly two-thirds of its length in width. The leaflets are complete and narrow…

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Anti-Inflammatory Plants: Plants That Stimulate Cortisone Production

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Natural Remedies

Natural Remedies for Inflammation (Healing Arts Press, 2014), by Christopher Vasey contains valuable information about treating inflammation naturally. The book examines over 50 of the most common inflammation-related illnesses and explains which medicinal plant or food supplement is best suited to ease the symptoms and help the body heal. The following excerpt is from Chapter 5, “Eighteen Anti-Inflammatory Plants.”

Plants That Stimulate Cortisone Production

The plants of this group have a “cortisone-like” effect; in other words, they stimulate the adrenal glands to produce more cortisone. This hormone will then flow at higher levels in the bloodstream and work its anti-inflammatory effect throughout the body. Since this cortisone is produced by the body and is a natural physiological product, it is entirely beneficial, without any adverse side effects.

Black-Currant-Web jpg

Black Currant (Ribes nigrum)

Botanical Description: The black currant is a small bush that can grow to more than 4…

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Those Medicinal Weeds: Silverweed {Potentilla anserina}

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Also, Known As:

Argentine
Cramp weed
Goosewort
Moon Grass
Silverweed
Wild Tansy

Silverweed (botanical name, Potentilla anserina) is a very short perennial herb that grows up to a height of 8 to 16 inches. This herb has runners that are about 3 to 6 feet in length linking new plants having tufts of leaves. Each tuft of leaves produces a solitary, vivid golden yellow flower with five petals between June and August. These flowers appear on top of leafless stalks measuring anything between 2 inches to 12 inches in length. Interestingly enough, flowers of silverweed, also known as goose plant, close at night time and in cloudy weather conditions.

The rootstock of silverweed is starchy and has served as a food for the Native Indians in North America, Eskimos and people inhabiting the northern regions of Europe for several years. They have been consuming the silverweed rootstock raw, boiled or…

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Those Medicinal Weeds: Plantain {Plantago major}

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Also, Known As:

Plantain
Ribwort
Snakeweed

When we talk about plantain, normally the image of a banana plantation conjures up in our mind. But the common plantain is a small wild plant with leaves that grow mostly from the plant’s bottom. It is found growing naturally in the lawns, gardens, backyards and along the roads throughout America. The plantain is a tough and perennial plant and similar to the dandelion (a weed with brilliant yellow flowers on unfilled stems bearing fluffy white seed heads) need to be pulled out along with the roots once it is securely set up in the yard. The leaves of the common plantain are generally ovate or egg-shaped and are found complete or jagged. The leaves are distinguished by their chunky and conduit foot-stalk. The flower stems of the common plantain grow up to a height of seven to twenty inches and are inclined with long and slim barbs of…

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That Funny Little Spring Weed: Lamb’s Quarter

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Lambs quarter is one of the most common weeds in gardens, backyards, and fallow fields, following human habitation closely. If you add horse or cow manure to your garden you will have a steady supply of these tasty wild greens for most of spring and summer. Easy to recognize with its alternate, triangle-to-diamond shaped leaves which are coated on the underside with a whitish grey powdery meal resembling flour. This coating may sometimes possess a coppery-fuchsia sheen and is sold as a cultivar called “magenta spreen” in some garden catalogs. The coating is a natural part of the leaf and is fine to eat. Put a leaf under water and the meal will cause the water to bead up in a beautiful iridescent fashion. Lamb’s quarter grows to 3-5 feet and is a branching annual with a grooved stem which is often tinged with red, especially at the node, or…

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Plant Profile: White Sage {Salvia apiana}

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Also, Known As:

Bee Sage
Sacred Sage
White Ceremonial Sage
White Sage

Salvia apiana or white sage is a perennially growing evergreen shrub that is indigenous to the southwestern regions of the United States and the adjoining north-western areas of Mexico. This herb is mostly found growing in the wild in the scrub habitat in the coastal regions of Baja California and Southern California, located on the western peripheries of the Sonoran and Mojave deserts.

White sage possibly derives its name from its ashen evergreen leaves, which contain oils and resins. The leaves of white sage emit a potent aroma when they are rubbed. The white to light lavender hued blooms of this plant attract bees, and this is described in the plant’s specific name – apiana. White sage bears many flower stalks, which measure anything between 1 meter and 1.3 meters (3.3 feet to 4.3 feet) in height. Occasionally…

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Plant Profile: Sage

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Salvia officinalis

Also, Known As:

Common Sage
Dalmatian Sage
Garden Sage
Meadow Sage
Red Sage
Sage
Scarlet Sage
True Sage

Considered all across the world as a valuable culinary spice, and cultivated everywhere, the sage is a perennial shrub that grows best in its wild state in Europe and in the Mediterranean areas of the world. The plant consists of a strongly branched root system, which produces square and finely hairy sterns. These are woody at the base and bear oblong leaves. The floral leaves of the sage are ovate to ovate-lanceolate. The flowers of the sage are small and two-lipped and they grow in whorls. The flowers are blue, purple or white in color.

The versatile sage can be used for bringing in quick relief from a variety of ailments, both minor and major. For example, to gain immediate relief from itching and swelling accompanying insect bites, a few fresh…

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