✦ Edible & Medicinal Plants: SPRING ✦

Spring is when the earth expels THE MOST ENERGY EVER...and it’s now where so many occurrences are happening so quickly within the natural world. It can get overwhelming if you’re trying to do all the things, like plant your garden, keep a tidy home, work, be present with friends and family, AND getting out into the wild woods to see what’s popping up alongside your favorite pathways!

Be patient with yourself.

Take the time to remember to be grateful for what you do have. (And avoid focusing on what you don’t—easiest way to manifest crap is to focus on it...). For instance, I didn’t get out to properly harvest Cottonwood buds in 2024. And that’s okay. Have I been harvesting those buds every year for close to two decades, why yes...but that year, the timing got away from me. I did enjoy the mass viola harvest in the garden that year though!

One of the key aspects to gathering and foraging in the wild, is to allow every year to be different. Some years you’ll notice certain plants pique your attention. Go with that! I’ve noticed that it’s far less important to me now to have a ‘well-stocked’ tincture cabinet or a diverse and large dried herb selection...it’s more important that I actually USE what I HAVE. And not worry about gathering something just because of its short harvest window. Take your time into consideration as well.

Sometimes the medicine of a Plant is simply being with it in Nature. You don’t have to consume or apply it on yourself to enjoy the magic of it!

Take your plant ID books out when you walk ~ discover new friends, and you never know when you might need to make an emergency band-aid to help a bee sting or an ankle sprain.

Here’s a list of some Spring Plants that I’ve often utilized in my personal apothecary or just nibbled on while walking, some are wilder and others more domesticated...I’ve jotted a few notes about these, but it certainly isn’t an exhaustive look. More to whet the palate and give you an idea for what might be growing near you!

Spring is a ripening, flourishing time ~ journey outside and enjoy the gifts from the Plants! (Being mindful of ethical and sustainable wild harvesting practices please!)

✦ Edible & Medicinal Plants: SPRING ✦

Alder (use the inner bark to increase lymph flow; add to witch hazel for facial cleansing)

Ball-head Waterleaf (a wild edible, one of the earliest blooms in the higher elevations)

Burdock (sauté for stew, make a long tea/infusion, moves the winter gunk; liver helper)

Chickweed (excellent in smoothies, good for fresh nibbles; helpful for boosting metabolism)

Dandelion (place a few leaves into a green smoothie! Saute in butter, add salt & pepper and eat with eggs/omelet)

Dock (gather for a weed pie recipe)

Elderberry blossoms (make an elixir ~ see recipe below)

Fireweed (harvest when 4” or smaller, similar to asparagus; great sautéed)

Labrador Tea (into June; harvest the blooms and leaves for tea)

Lamb’s Quarters (eat fresh, like Spinach, does contain oxalates so add sparingly)

Lilac (blooms for enfleurage, overnight infused water potion)

Mallow (chew up for a bug bite spit poultice, very effective; arrives before Plantain)

Pineapple Weed (poor man’s Chamomile)

Plantain (use small leaves in weed pie to steamed greens; chew up for bug bite relief)

Purslane (edible and super nutritious)

Raspberry (use fresh leaves in tea for extra minerals—only use fully fresh or fully dried; same with strawberry leaves)

Red Clover (leaves, adds minerals)

Shepherds Purse (good for bleeding, like Yarrow)

Spruce tips (delightful for tea, infused into honey)

Stinging Nettle (if trying to grow, take stem cuttings from an abundant wild stand and root in water!)

Twisted Stalk (PNW wild spring delicacy; can grow wonderfully in the garden in regions where it grows wild)

Valerian (harvest Spring roots for a tincture)

Viola (eat in salad, dry for tea and infused oil)

Violet (revel in the wild Violets; chew a leaf or bloom, feel the mucilage on your tongue)

Wild Onion (in the higher elevations this will pop up in May, April usually in the foothills) — in 2026 it was March!

Willow (use the dried inner bark to make a pain-relieving oil)

Yarrow (leaves early; use a few in a weed pie, recognize for later--good for bleeding)

Elderberry (Sambucus spp.) flowers, both red & blue, are a helpful ally when congested and feverish.*

Fill a jar almost full of elderberry blossoms, removing the green stems (bitter).

Add brandy to 2/3 of the way full.

Stir.

Add honey to the top.

Stir again. Cap with a plastic lid, or if using metal, place parchment paper between the elixir and lid.

Label.

Shake daily and steep for 4 weeks. Strain.
Use a spoonful neat (take as is) or use in tea.
(Yarrow tea is especially useful when dealing with cold & flu symptoms.)

Alternatively, make an infused honey.

Pour honey over dry, freshly opened elderberry flowers.

Infuse 2-4 weeks. Strain** flowers out and use in tea or take neat.

*Avoid use in a child who often experiences convulsions & high fever. --Michael Moore.

**Placing the jar into warm/hot water helps loosen the honey to allow easier straining. A small metal mesh strainer works well with, or without, a loose-weave cheesecloth to aid in getting all the bits out. Best used within a year, although infused honey can last longer depending.

If you enjoyed this article, perhaps you might like to read the following as well ~ the violets are up and blooming prettily in my yard as I write. The violas (aka Johnny Jump Up’s) are going to town in the garden bed where the onions are supposed to go.

These two blooming spring beauties have been a catalyst for a couple of articles:

How I called Violets into my Yard

·

May 6, 2025

Been thinking of this story for a few years now. Finally taking the time to type it out. It makes me laugh, the Plants will do that. I hope you enjoy this little true-tale that describes how I called in the Violets to my yard. It also details how I was so deviously tricked by a Plant that I knew exuberantly well from Jewell Gardens, but failed to recogn…

✶ Mint Pink Lemonade ✶

·

June 24, 2025

And no, it’s not just adding Hibiscus (although that sure is pretty too). The following is an alchemical reaction that is so fun to make. And it solved a mystery I’ve pondered for nearly a decade!

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