What to Forage & Wildcraft in Each Season

Foraging and wildcrafting is an amazing way to connect to nature anytime throughout the year. Knowing what plants are doing in each season as well as what’s available to forage has helped me develop an intimate relationship with my landscape. It’s such a beautiful thing to enjoy the tasty and medicinal benefits of pine during the winter months when the rest of the landscape sleeps. When summer blooms abound I love foraging for fresh greens along rushing streams just as much as nibbling on roasted acorns in autumn. Just like in the garden, wild landscapes offer different treasures in each season. To help you develop fundamental knowledge of foraging and wildcrafting through a seasonal year, I’m sharing a list of what to forage in each season.

wild foraged pine resin and what to forage in each season

While this is by no means a complete list of what is available to forage, it’s a great starting point - especially for beginners. Many of these plants grow abundantly across the northern hemisphere, and they’re all safe. Not all of these plants will grow in your area because this list spans a variety of climates. However, there’s a good chance that many of these plants do grow near you. Furthermore, the majority of these plants are easy to identify and have few (if any) toxic look-a-likes. Please keep in mind that while this list offers a great starting point it’s imperative that you conduct your own in-depth research on each plant you intend to forage. Buy a foraging and plant identification book for your region as a start. Follow my guidelines for safe, sustainable, and ethical foraging. And, join one of my Foraging Workshops to learn more about foraging and wildcrafting with individual plants.

Before diving into the list, if you’re craving a little more knowledge about the whys and wherefores, here’s a brief explanation…

Some basic botany teaches us why certain parts of a plant are forageable at certain times of the year. (I cover this topic in much more depth in my online courses.) All plants experience the same life cycle of germination, youth, maturity, flowering, reproduction, then death. Annual plants experience this cycle within the span of one year. Perennial plants experience a modified version of this life cycle where, instead of dying, they go dormant then reanimate, grow foliage etc, and the cycle continues year after year. Most biennial plants spend their first year of life getting established, then reproduce their second year before dying.

Having a basic understanding of what function each part of the plant serves is also important. If we combine our understanding of the plant body parts with our understanding of the life cycle of plants, then we know what parts of a plant are “activated” or most enriched with life-force and nutrients in each season. We can also discern what parts of the plant are most important to the plant in each season in order to continue living. In short, winter is the best time to forage for evergreens because most other plants are dormant. Spring is the season to forage for bark, sap, green foliage and fresh shoots because the energy in the plant is reactivating and the plant sugars are moving upwards into the body of the plant above ground. Summer is when we forage for the flowers and foliage. In late summer, the plant’s energy is going into fruit production so thats where the nutrients and sugars are located. In late summer we forage for berries. In fall after the berries are spent, the seeds are revealed making this season perfect for harvesting seeds and nuts. In fall the energy and sugars of the of the plant move downward into the roots to protect itself for winter so we also forage for roots in the fall too. Check out the educational infographics below.