Spring wild pesto has become an annual tradition in the writer’s house. (
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Foraged spring greens for pesto. (
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The author and her son brought the goats on their spring foraging expedition. (
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For many years, I wanted to learn how to forage. I would read guidebooks and inspiring blog posts by and about people who could identify wild foods, and I aspired to be like them. I kept thinking that I would need someone who knew stuff to come to my house and point out what edible plants I had, and I would dutifully make notes and then harvest those patches at the right time of year.
I went on thinking that, until I heard a friend say something similar out loud. Then, somehow, it clicked in my head that I was waiting for someone to tell me what I was seeing instead of just taking the time to look. That epiphany sat around awhile, because somehow, I never felt like I had the time for dedicated looking. Looking felt like something I would need a lot of time to accomplish. Until one day, I was nursing my youngest child outside. There I was, stuck sitting on the lawn. And while I could do nothing but look around me, I finally looked. And I could see all these plants that made up the green canvas of my lawn.
There was plantain! Wood sorrel! Dandelion leaves! I could see grass and clover. I had known those were there already, but now I could see my lawn’s various plants grew in different styles, some clumped together in dense patches, others in looser groupings.
It all clicked into place and I started understanding what I was seeing.
That child is now long past nursing, just finished with elementary school. In the intervening years I have learned how to identify more edible and inedible plants. (Though my sons will always point out, everything is edible once.)
With that knowledge, every spring, I would gather those green plants and make a wild pesto. The first greens of the year felt so exciting and worthy of celebration. But over the years, I realized that I was the only one eating it, and even my enthusiasm waned. Last year, I just didn’t make it. I thought I was the only one who noticed its absence.
But this year, my eldest son asked, “When can we go foraging and make pesto?”
I did the internal dance of a mom whose kid had noticed! And cared! We grabbed our baskets and scissors and sallied forth into the yard and brambles.