Wildcrafting is sometimes referred to as wild harvesting or simply foraging. It’s the practice of harvesting plants, herbs, and mushrooms in their natural environment – the forest, your backyard, even the side of the road (though you do want to exercise some caution foraging from highways. All that gas and smog can lead to lead, oil, and other contaminants in the plants. Pick wisely.

Technically speaking, wildcrafting can refer to any traditional herb, mushroom, or plant harvested in the wild, while foraging refers specifically to those that are edible. If you’re into splitting gray hairs with a Jewish Space Laser, anyway. Tomato, tomatoe. You get the gist.

So how do wildcrafted herbs stack up against organic herbs grown in a garden?

Proponents of wildcrafting fervently believe herbs are most potent when harvested in the wild, ethically of course. (More on that later.)

Wildcrafting herbs tends to result in a stronger, heartier harvest because wild herbs adapt to thrive in challenging conditions, developing higher concentrations of beneficial compounds like essential oils, antioxidants, and alkaloids. These potent properties make wildcrafted herbs more effective for medicinal and culinary uses. 

A wildcrafted herb is kinda like running into Keanu Reeves in the Bay – they’re heartier, healthier, and in their natural environment. They’ll buy you a beer, smoke you down, drive you to the airport: They feel like home.

Wildcrafting is a beautiful way to connect with the plants and explore the rich garden bounty of the Earth. Indulge your inner hippie and make love to nature. 

To be part of nature is to belong to a community, an ancestral connection of ecological abundance. If you feel lost, sad, or lonely – know there is an abundance of nature surrounding us with the interconnection of the sacredness of life. 

By gathering herbs directly from the wild, we honor the unique characteristics of native flora, preserving traditional knowledge of these plants and their uses. Wildcrafting herbs connects us to our natural heritage.

When wildcrafting, always pick plants in a conscious way that encourages biodiversity and proliferates the population of what you harvest – rather than deplete it.

This practice is known as wildtending. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a writer, plant ecologist, and member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi, refers to the Honorable Harvest, a practice rooted in an Indigenous worldview. She emphasizes the importance of approaching nature with respect, reciprocity, and gratitude. 

Take only what is needed. Never pick the first or the last – never take more than half. Always give something back. Be so undetectable you’re almost sneaky – always leave the wildcrafted space in the same or better condition than you found it. And only share your wildcrafting spots with those you can trust to respect nature as a sacred space. 

Tap into your intuition and connect to the plants. Ask the plants if it’s okay to harvest. The answer is often a feeling you know in that space between your heart and your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, harvest someplace else. 

In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer explains: 

“Asking permission shows respect for the personhood of the plant, but it is also an assessment of the well-being of the population. Thus I must use both sides of my brain to listen to the answer. The analytic left reads the empirical signs to judge whether the population is large and healthy enough to sustain a harvest, whether it has enough to share. The intuitive right hemisphere is reading something else, a sense of generosity, an open-handed radiance that says take me, or sometimes a tight-lipped recalcitrance that makes me put the trowel away. I can’t explain it, but it is a kind of knowing that for me is just as compelling as a no-trespassing sign.”

Ask the plants. Listen to your intuition. Connect to the Earth. If you listen, you’ll understand how to sustain an ethical harvest that encourages abundant biodiversity.

Start in your backyard. Dandelions, chick week, chamomile, and red clover grow abundantly in lawns and are easy to identify. These herbs are good for you and brew well in a nice tea or supplement a salad.

Target invasive species – it’s pretty much open season on these herbs.

United Plant Savers champions the protection of at-risk plant species by offering guidelines, verifications, and certifications to promote sustainable wild harvesting and forest farming of traditional herbs and plants.

Always practice reciprocity to maintain the balance between human needs and the health of natural ecosystems. By harvesting mindfully and with gratitude, we honor the plants and the environment that sustain us. 

Respect, nurture, care for the plants – and they’ll care for us. Find your Green Path and appreciate the dance of abundance. From bugs to sparrows to granola-eating freaks, we’re all part of a wider community that is this natural ecosystem.