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Herbs and Wildcrafting – Getting to Know Our Plant Allies

We’ll explore how to use cultivated herbs and learn wildcrafting with the Weekly Weeder Series to help you identify and use wild plants.

There are a TON of ways to use plants for food, medicine, cleaning, crafts, and more. We help you learn how, easily and safely, with full color photos throughout the site.

Herbs

11 Best Medicinal Herbs to Grow (Herb Garden & Wildcrafted)

25 Immune Boosting Herbs and Spices

Bay Leaf – Fresh or Dry, It’s a Plant with Many Uses

Borage – Growing Tips and Uses

Cold and Cough Care Syrup and Tea Recipes

Ginger Root Uses & Health Benefits

Growing Chamomile – Easy Care Tips and Uses

Growing Passionflower for Flowers, Fruit, & Herbal Remedies

Grow Stevia and Make Homemade Stevia Extract

Fennel Seed – Natural Digestive Aid & More

The Top 15 Herbal Antibiotics

8 Herbal Coffee Alternatives

Herbal Gelatin – Immune Boosting Herbs in Finger Gelatin

Herbs for Pollinators (and You!)

How to Grow, Harvest & Use Valerian Root

How to Infuse Herbs in Oil, Water, Vinegar, Alcohol or Honey

Lemon Balm Benefits & Uses

Milk Thistle – The Gentle Liver Tonic Everyone Should Know

Passionflower Benefits and Use Tips

Sage Benefits for Home, Health and Personal Care

Soothing Ginger Honey – Natural Remedy for Sore Throats and Coughs

Thieves Vinegar Recipes

Using Mint Leaves for Food, Medicine, & More

White Willow Bark – Harvesting and Use

Cooking with Herbs

Cooking with Herbs – What to Use When

Why do Onions Make You Cry

Wildcrafting – Using Your Weeds

Although not standard “garden” elements, my weeds are also harvested for culinary and medicinal use. The “Weekly Weeder” series provides identification and usage information for many common weeds, plus there are articles on some of my favorite herbal recipes and remedies that are a must for every homesteader.

5 Reasons Why I Want Weeds in My Garden

What if I told you weeds and bacteria could save your life?

Online Botany & Wildcrafting Course at The Herbal Academy

“Real” Healing Potions – Introducing the boys to wildcrafting. medicinal uses of yarrow and plantain

Eating Bugs – Free Food from Your Backyard – Another form of Wildcrafting

Cooking with Weeds – Goosefoot Pie and Sauteed Milkweed Pods

The Pocket Guide to Wild Mushrooms Review

Herbs and Wildcrafting Featuring the Weekly Weeder Series

The Weekly Weeder Series

Recommended Foraging & wildcrafting Reference Books

Chickweed – Herbal Remedy for Itchy and Inflamed Skin

Thistle – Edible from Bud to Root

Red Clover – Nitrogen Fixer and Gentle Tonic

Chicory – The Coffee Root Plant

Queen Anne’s Lace – Butterfly Host Plant and Blueberry Protector

Common Ragweed – Bane of Allergy Sufferers

Butter and Eggs – Sweet Scented Bumblebee Magnet

Goldenrod – Growing, Foraging, Uses, & Control

Marvelous Milkweed – Answers to 21 Common Questions About this Useful Plant

Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis

New England Aster

Common Mullein

Broadleaf Plantain – The “Weed” You Won’t Want to Be Without

Shepherd’s Purse

Stinging Nettle – One of Most Useful Wild Plants

Benefits of Dandelion Plus How to Use Greens, Seeds, Roots & Flowers

Ox-eye Daisy

Catnip – Uses for People and Cats

Winter Cress – Barbarea vulgaris

Lamb’s Quarters – Chenopodium album

Wild Geranium – Geranium maculatum

Common Blue Violet – Viola sororia sororia

Prickly Wild Lettuce – Lactuca serriola

Creeping Charlie – Glechoma hederacea

Sulphur Cinquefoil – Potentilla recta

Birdsfoot trefoil – Lotus corniculatus

Purslane – Portulaca oleracea

Pineapple Weed – Matricaria discoidea

Common Burdock – Arctium minus

Common Mallow – Malva neglecta

Curly Dock – Rumex crispus

Jewelweed – Impatiens capensis

Yarrow – The “Plant Doctor” for your Yard and Garden

Joe Pye Weed – Eupatorium maculatum

Heath Aster – Aster ericoides

Wild Cucumber – Echinocystis lobata

Velvetleaf – Abutilon theophrasti

Comfrey – Symphytum officinale

Quackgrass – Elymus repens

Dame’s Rocket – Hesperis matronalis

Tansy – Tanacetum vulgare

Wild Strawberry – Fragaria virginiana

Marsh Marigold – Caltha palustris

Canada Mayflower – Maianthemum canadense

Field Pennycress – Thlaspi arvense

Blue-eyed Grass – Sisyrinchium montanum

White Sweet Clover – Melilotus alba

Weekly Weeder at Common Sense Home - drying herbs

Plantain

Grandma Called it Medicine Leaf – Plantain Weed Remedies

How to Make Salve with Infused Oils

Dandelions

Harvesting and Using Dandelion Roots

Dandelion Jelly – An Easy, Low Sugar  Flower Jelly Recipe

How to Make Dandelion Wine (And the Mistake You Don’t Want to Make

Elderberries

Wild Elderberry – What does an Elderberry Plant Look Like?

How to Make Elderberry Syrup from Fresh or Dried Berries

Elderberry Jelly Recipes

Easy Elderberry Jam

How to Make Elderberry Wine

Elderberry Gummies Recipe

Not on my site, but a great read – “Weeds: Guardians of the Soil”

I just rediscovered the book “Weeds- Guardians of the Soil” thanks to Phil Nauta, The Smiling Gardener. I had read a page of this book years ago, and wanted to read the rest of it ever since. Thanks, Phil!

Herbs and Wildcrafting Featuring the Weekly Weeder Series

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73 Comments

  1. When wildcrafting, can the weed be harvested with the already dried flower on the stem? Is there still enough medicinal properties in those blossoms to use?

    Reply

  4. Just found out about your wonderful website……went out this morning with a whole new attitude on the weeds that are beginning to show up here in early spring….I’ve got so much to learn and will be reading your back post…..I’ve signed up for your newsletter and I’m sharing it with all my friends…our mini farm never has been more exciting and appreciated….truly a gift from God…..thank you for your work and dedication….I’m planning to purchase the books you mentioned…they sound like a world full of information….I’ll be needing a dehydrator…..mine was just a cheap plastic one and didn’t even last one garden season….My grandmother use to dry all her herbs just by hanging them on the screened in back porch however I’m wanting to do fruits and vegetables….one of my friends purchased an Excalibur…I believe was the brand…..it’s electric….what is your way of drying?…do you have a store bought one or homemade…..I saw one many years ago in Mother Earth Magazine……just can’t seem to control myself…it must be common sense spring fever…Ha!!!

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your kind words, your excitement and sharing the site with friends. Sometimes it gets tough to make time to keep the site going with everything else going on in life, but comments like yours remind me why I keep writing.

      I’ve ended up with two dehydrators – a small Snackmaster that I bought many years ago, and a more recently purchased Excalibur that I bought to handle the big drying jobs. I also sometimes hang dry some herbs when I’m doing bulk drying, like large quantities of catnip for the kitties.

      I know what you mean about spring fever! It’s been tough to stay inside on these warm sunny days.

      I have a post covering the basics of dehydrating located at: https://commonsensehome.com/home-food-drying/ It includes links to specific drying tutorials, as well as more information on equipment options.

      Reply

  5. Any info on having your own bees? ?? I LOVE the site Laurie! !!!!! I look forward to coming to an open house!!!

    Reply

  8. Hi Laurie,

    I know I may be shooting in the dark here but…I saw on another blog where you guest posted on dehydrating fruits/herbs that you are a mechanical engineer by training. I am looking to build a medium scale tray dryer and was wondering if you had any previous experience in this regard or know anyone that can help guide me on building one. I am starting a small fruit drying business but the commercial dryers that I’ve seen are way out of my budget and I have heard of people building their own. Do you think you can assist me in any way?

    Reply

  9. Wow, I just gotta say thank you! The info and experience you’ve put into your life and site is amazing. Thank you. I would love to come hang out with you for one day and just watch you do some of the things you talk about. I’m a single mother of two and I desperately try to find more ways to make living affordable. I LOVE gardening and just being outside. I love the thought that I could just live off of everything I grow myself. Thanks again.

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Monica. People like you are the reason I keep writing even when I feel completely swamped and overwhelmed. Life’s not all roses, but we do the best we can with what we have, and try to keep learning and doing a little more each day.

      Reply

  11. Have you ever seen or heard of an Herb Harvesting Calendar?
    It would be wonderful to know what to look for and
    when…

    Reply

    1. Are you talking about cultivated herbs or wildcrafted plants? I’ve never heard of a calendar like this. It would be difficult to make, either way, because harvest dates will vary by zone and even by microclimate.

      Reply

  12. I need a good post or some detailed information on the look and gathering of Jerusalem Artichoke. I know it grows around here, but each time I think I have Identified it, I turns out NOT to be what I’m looking for. WikiPedia isn’t detailed enough.

    Reply

  13. I’ve been moving more and more into organic gardening and now want to “grow” edible weeds to go with the ‘greens’ I plant. Also to attract “good” bugs and pollinators. A guy saw some mushrooms growing on my railroad toes and wanted to eat them ….. he said they smelled OK, but I wouldn’t let him do so and told him lots of preople have died from eating mis-identified mushrooms. I know mushrooms aren’t ‘weeds’ but really need to know what is in my yard that can be eaten – and – what should be avoided. I didn’t know thistle was edible. How does one get around those thorns?

    Reply

    1. Is that “railroad ties”? I would not eat any mushrooms growing out of those, as they are treated with chemicals that would be absorbed by the mushrooms.

      One can handle thistles barehanded if one has tough fingers and manipulates them gingerly, but light gloves are helpful. You go for large plants with fat, juicy ribs, and sort of skin off the prickly outside. I’ve also munched roots of small plants as I am weeding – just rinse and go – no skinning.

      Reply

  14. I just love reading these! I have learned so much. I find myself looking at weed everwhere now. LOL. Thanks for all you do!

    Reply

  15. You should do a post on the Elderberry plant! Thanks for all the wonderful posts you have done so far. I am learning so much! Just looked at Queen Anne’s Lace….I happen to have tons of it here on my property! Plantain is quickly taking over my yards…some kind of tiny yellow clover that tastes like vinegar, red clover ad white…the list keeps growing! I love finding new “food” on the land that we live on!

    Reply

    1. I don’t have any elderberries on my property, but I have a friend who does, so perhaps I can prevail upon her to snap some photos for me. We did make elderberry syrup, jelly and wine last fall:

      https://commonsensehome.com/elderberry-syrup/

      https://commonsensehome.com/elderberry-jelly/

      https://commonsensehome.com/how-to-make-elderberry-wine/

      My son and I were walking in the yard yesterday identifying edibles and medicinals as we went. It’s a good feeling to know your “plant allies”. 🙂

      Reply

      1. I love elderberry tincture that I make myself. Also elderberry brandy with spices and fruits, both are medicinal (and good)…wonderful when coming down with a cold or flu, or just to help prevent!!

        Reply

        1. My neighbor says she knows of some elderberry stands nearby, so I’m looking forward to experimenting with blossoms this spring as well as fall fruit. The wine is lovely!

          Reply