Edible and Medicinal Plants

The Valley of the Willamette travels to the Columbia. Apple trees break the concrete, mushrooms come and dissolve from forest park and nettles bite between the houses. Along its shores and beyond we tend to a vast food forest to feeds ourselves. The Cascadia Plant Guild knows that life is more than what we yield for this season, it is sustaining a harvest for 200 years and beyond. Where there is abundance we forage, while leaving behind enough for the robin, the fox, the salmon, or the beaver. Where there is a lack, we tend to it first. Planting, propagating and knowing this care for land may not immediately feed us or our children, instead our gardener's heart nourishes our grandchildren, their children and beyond. Harvesting in these secret places is a rite of passage. You need to earn it. We will not take you immediately out to the forest, marshes and shores that feed the people, but we will give you clues and tools on how to one day find your way there.