Gingko Leaf Tincture

I hope you all have been having as beautiful a fall as I have! It's been gorgeous here in Western PA. Pandemic isolation has spurred me to go on long walks every morning after dropping my daughter at school, as well as asking friends if they want to join me on outdoor, socially distant walks. To my delight I have rekindled old friendships and even made some new friends! On my agenda this fall: process acorns into flour, tincture gingko leaves, and try cooking and eating gingko nuts. 

Two friends and I met at a local park to gather burr oak acorns, which are large acorns with only a small percentage of tanins - the perfect acorn for making flour! However, when we got to the beautiful burr oak tree, we found the city had "cleaned up" all the acorns! Oh no! 

But while we were there one of my friends wanted to show us a gorgeous grandpa gingko tree - so big and all decked out in golden leaves, with a carpet of gold beneath it. So beautiful! We admired the tree and the fallen leaves, and since we had our (empty) baskets anyway, we decided to gather the gingko leaves.

Then I went home and chopped some leaves, filled a small jar, then covered them with 80 proof vodka.

You may be wondering how we were able to lounge comfortably under a gingko tree, especially if you associate them with the stinky fruit they are known for! Gingko trees are either male or female, and the female are the ones with the stinky yellow fruit (next post!) This big old guy was a male tree, hence all leaves and no fruit.

Gingko leaves are great for circulation, especially for the brain and eyes. The tincture is good to help memory. It may seem odd to use yellow leaves that have fallen off the tree...you'd think the summer green vibrant leaves are the ones you'd want, but when tincturing gingko it's the autumn golden leaves you are looking for. You can find a lot more information about the benefits of gingko and what dose is best by doing a quick search online.

I hope you are having a wonderful fall! If you feel lonely and you are able to get out into the woods, go there, you won't be disappointed. Even when I am alone I'm surrounded by trees, leaves, water, birds, animals...I've seen two owls (a barred and an eastern screech), black squirrels, gray squirrels, chipmunks, deer, and lots of beaver activity (though I have yet to spot the beaver!)

Drawable Edibles! Online Nature Journaling Class on Skillshare (Link Below)

It's spring! Grab your sketchbook and join me outside (virtually, we are social distancing of course!) as we find and identify garlic mustard, chickweed, deadnettle, and dandelion in this online nature journaling class!

We'll practice timed gesture drawing and blind contour drawing to push right past any fears you might have about drawing. And hey, it doesn't have to be perfect or even good, this isn't botanical illustration after all! It's just a fun way to really get to the know the plants.

This link gives you two months of Skillshare for free, no obligation. Then you will be able not only to take my class, but any of the thousands of classes on there!

Join the class today!

~ Melissa

First Day of Spring!

Happy Spring! I hope everyone is safe and well, and hunkered away at home, social distancing! When you want to get out, instead of heading to a crowded supermarket, our greens are finally coming up out of the ground. Here is just a sample of some of the wild edibles I found on a walk around my neighborhood this evening:

Onion Grass (Wild Chives) Allium vineale

 Stinging Nettles, Urtica dioica:

Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata:

Broad Leaved Dock, Rumex obtusifolius:

Cleavers, Galium aparine:

Purple deadnettles, Lamium purpureum:

Dandelion greens, Taraxacum officinale:

I hope you prepare some delicious meals with our new spring bounty!

Stay home, stay well!

Love,

Melissa

The Greenest Green Drink For Spring

Today, over a month after it officially began, it finally felt like spring. The sun was out, the weather was warm, the birds were singing. When I ventured into my yard I found the edible weeds were thriving.

I gathered a bowl full of comfrey, chickweed, cleavers, nettles, deadnettles, and mint (all growing in a one foot square in my yard!) and blended them up with an apple, some water, and ice to make the greenest green drink ever, which wasn't too sweet (no banana) but tasted just perfect - like spring. 

Medicinal Herb Walks At Frick Park Earth Day

I had a fantastic time leading THREE medicinal herb walks at this year's Frick Park Earth Day celebration on Saturday. Even though spring is taking its time getting here this year we still had plenty to see and talk about! We discussed:

• Tansy: noting the smell of the leaves and discussing its traditional herbal uses 
• Cornelian Cherries, or Cornus Mas, actually a type of dogwood with an edible fruit. Also known as the Chinese herb shan zhu yu.
• We discussed the differences between Chinese medicine and Western botanical medicine
• The make up of Chinese herbal formulas, and the functions of the chief herb, deputy herbs, assistant herbs, and envoy.
• The five tastes: sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, and what physical effects they have on our body's energy
• We discussed how to make:
• decoctions
• infusions
• tinctures
• vinegars
• oils
• salves
• Sustainable harvesting, identification, and Eastern and Western uses of
• violet
• dandelion
• burdock
• cleavers
• broad leaf dock
• coltsfoot
• creeping charle
• plantain
• red and white clover
• mugwort
• tansy
• The importance of learning botanical names of plants
• And so much more!

No shortage of plants and ideas to discuss, and three amazing groups of people who joined me for each walk. Thank you for making this event one of my favorites of the year.

To get notifications of my upcoming walks and workshops, sign up for my newsletter and/or sign up for the blog updates (right margin.)

Hope to see you soon!

~ Melissa

Throwback to Earth Day 2010 at Frick Park:

First Spring Walks of 2018 Scheduled!

Spring is in the air! No, the violets are not out yet (photo above is a picture from another year), BUT...

Frick Park's Earth Day Celebration is coming up, and this year we'll be offering SIX walks!!! Yes, this year Dave is taking over the wild edibles walks, and I am going to be leading Medicinal Plants Walks, and we'll be offering three walks each: at 12 noon, 1:30 pm, and 3 pm.

Earth Day Nature Walks and Hikes at Frick Park!!

When: Saturday, April 21, 2018. 11:30 am - 4 pm.
Where: Frick Park Environmental Center, 2005 Beechwood  Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Cost: FREE!

This is a free family friendly event! A whole day of nature walks. The schedule isn't up yet, but in addition to our wild edibles and medicinal plant walks, there are usually mushroom walks, birding walks, snake and spider walks, and many many more!

Arrive 1/2 hour early to sign up for your hike, there are limited spaces and they tend to fill.

More information on the Frick Park Website.

See you there!

~ Melissa

Delicious Prickly Pear Fruit Smoothie in Sedona Arizona

Food Under Food headed west last week, and found ourselves hiking in Sedona, AZ where prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) was fruiting everywhere!

Knowing that though the fruit looks void of prickers it actually contains thousands of tiny hair-like glochids, which are barbed shots of pure pain, we carefully harvested them using a plastic bag, and washed the glochids off before handling.

See how the fruit looks fuzzy? Those are barbed glochids! Beware!

prickly pear fruit AFTER washing glochids off

After much trial and error, I found the best way to process them was as follows: hand-peel the skin off the fruit, and then cut the hard top and bottom off, slit it open and scrape out the hard seeds. From here they can be eaten raw or used in recipes.

We were staying in a rented condo, so we simply put them into a blender with a banana, ice and a little water. The result was delicious, especially in the 90+ degree weather!

What an incredible color! And so delicious. It is sweet and tastes a bit like watermelon. Hope you get a chance to enjoy this wild edible delight!

~ Melissa