Brittany Leah

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June Wild Strawberries

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The sweetest thing about June is wild strawberries. If you can find enough of them during the short window of time they are available, they really are a treat. The first year I foraged wild strawberries was in 2017 in a meadow in the Kawartha region of Ontario. I managed to find a lot and they were the most delicious fruit. That was the year I bought a camera and started to learn about photography and wild plants.

These are photos from 2017:

Since that year, I haven’t had another big harvest of wild strawberries. I currently live in a suburb and there are some growing along the hedge of the garden. Not nearly enough to enjoy them though.

Last year for my June bullet journal, I did a strawberry theme.

 

I so look forward to them every year.

The Arrival of Spring

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Finally Spring has arrived here in Southern Ontario.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for things to start popping up, as this is the first year I set out on a mission to catch some new plant growth as it happens.

We had an especially long winter this year, with a snowfall and ice storm in April. For the first time in my life it was cold, wet and snowy on my birthday, April 17th. So it has been an especially long wait!

I’ve deliberately walked along the same trails since the Fall in order to observe changes in nature and the plants. February, March and the beginning of April were a very long wait for anything interesting to happen. But then suddenly, I would say within 24 hours of our very first warm day, young sprouts are coming up everywhere as if by magic.

I have never noticed before how quickly these things happen! It’s really so delightful.

The violets and nettles that I have been dreaming about are here. These are both edible plants, and if I was in an area that wasn’t a popular dog-walking trail in the city, then I would forage some to eat.

 

Also Coltsfoot is one of the very first signs of Spring. They resemble dandelions. It’s so nice to see them finally appearing along the river.

 

I also saw bees among the scilla flowers! These flowers are a garden-escape species and they actually come up pretty early, before the last frost.

Life has regenerated and nature is alive again with new energy.

“The coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.” – Thoreau

 

Mid-June magic

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It is common advice that one should get outdoors and enjoy fresh air for good health. I think of all the countless times I’ve gone outside to get my mind off things or take a break, walking through a park or area with lots of wild plant growth, and not even noticed what was going on in the natural world right outside my door.

This is because we are not raised in our public education system to have a connection with nature or to learn about the wildlife in our environment. We are conditioned from a young age to learn to complete tasks indoors (to prepare us to be complacent for a corporate job) and then to indulge ourselves in our allocated free time to more indoor activity, such as nightclubs, movies or fashion, obsessed with being cool and terrified of missing out on trends.

I’m quite sure that as young girls, most were like me and couldn’t wait to be outside, along a creek, in a meadow, picking flowers and plants, pretending to make useful stuff out of them. Those were our original inclinations that we get trained out of.

When the curiosity of nature revives itself within you, you realize you do not need to go far to keep yourself preoccupied. I was going to use the word ‘entertained’ instead of ‘preoccupied’ but I don’t think that fascination with and learning about the world is the same as trivial entertainment. Actually, you stop feeling like you need to be entertained more than the enjoyment of the company of those that are close to you.

Most people this day and age want so badly to travel and go to different clubs, restaurants and shops. I myself used to think that was the epitome of the “good life” and it was what I strove for. I still of course would take any opportunity to travel, but the difference now is that I do not feel restless being in one place, in my home country that I grew up believing was boring. In fact, I now have a fascination with the Canadian natural landscape and how the awesome change of seasons impacts all that is around us, offering us different things to see and find at different times.

The past week, I have begun familiarizing myself with what grows at this stage of the year, early summer. There is so much diversity of plants in such a small amount of space.

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I probably wouldn’t have given any attention at all to red clovers from the time I was a teenager until about a year ago. I used to eat them when I was a child though. They’re all starting to pop up now.

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If you’re in meadow or along a road and you look closely, you might find wild strawberries. I have found a ton of them.

Ontario wild strawberry

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Wild roses are blooming now. I believe they can be used to make herbal tea and that the petals are edible. I tried to capture the pure white spider on this one, but he got camera shy …

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I could get lost for hours in a meadow.

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Hope you’re enjoying the magic around you.

 

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Sumac & Milkweed Shoots

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It is a very slow process to learn about wild plants in your area. You must dedicate a lot of time and exercise patience. The plants in my region change constantly from season to season, and as we all know, time flies by quickly so I missed out on some plants that were at their prime for harvesting in the Spring.

I’ve just caught the tail-end of the season for Sumac and Milkweed shoots which I just learned about as edible plants. It hadn’t occurred to me that these robust full-grown plants start off as tiny little things before they become large and sturdy.

Sumac are exotic looking tall shrubs that have cone shaped clusters of bright red fuzzy berries in the summer. Milkweeds are very sturdy tall, green plants (up to 5 feet) with no branches but very strong, opposite patterned leaves. They produce large pods by the end of the summer that have a milky sap in them that turns to a silky feather-like substance in the fall.

Both of them are fascinating and special to me since they are two of the first native plants in my area that I learned about on my own. Sumacs and Milkweeds can both be found in open areas, sunny meadows and along roadsides.

Anyways, they make the most darling little shoots.

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Milkweed shoots, when they are this size, are apparently edible just as if they were asparagus.

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In my area, there are some that are already getting quite large since it is June already.

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According to one source, sumac shoots are edible and you need only to peel back the skin. They MUST be the species of sumac that produce red berries – not white berries.  Sumacs are distinctly lovely in that their shoots and branches are so soft and velvety. I was really thrilled when I identified some baby ones, which are quite abundant.

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What are your favorite early summer wild edibles?

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