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Foraging + Wildcrafting

Foraging and wildcrafting connect the kitchen to the landscape around you. In this section you’ll learn how to identify, harvest, and use edible and useful plants growing right outside your door.

From wild greens and berries to mushrooms and medicinal plants, these guides focus on safe identification, ethical harvesting, and practical ways to bring wild ingredients into everyday cooking and herbal preparations.

Whether you're gathering a handful of spring greens or learning to recognize new plants through the seasons, this category helps you explore wild foods with confidence.

  • Freshly foraged ramps (wild leeks) on a dark surface, showing green leaves and white bulbs after a sustainable harvest
    How to Forage Ramps Without Destroying the Patch (A Real Beginner’s Guide)
  • foraging for morels in spring forest floor wild morel mushroom growing among leaves
    Foraging for Morels (without walking right past them)
  • close-up of hand holding a wild violet flower while foraging in the woods
    The “Weeds” in Your Yard Are Food (Here’s Where to Start)
  • Growing Grapes In Your Backyard: An Easy How to Grow Guide
  • Foraging & Cooking With Sheep Sorrel
  • Oyster Mushrooms
  • Close-up of vibrant green fiddlehead ferns emerging from dark soil in early spring.
    Foraging Fiddleheads: What They Are, Where to Find Them, and How to Prepare Them
  • Fruit growing on an American persimmon tree
    Foraging for American Persimmon
  • Foraging for and Using Wild Grapes
  • Close-up of a mature cattail plant with a brown flower head standing tall among green stalks beside a deep blue body of water, symbolizing its natural habitat and wild food potential.
    Cattails: Edible, Medicinal, and Wildly Useful

About

Elle McCoy, author of The Rustic Elk, with long wavy hair reflected in an ornate vintage mirror, sitting at a candlelit vanity with makeup brushes, perfume, and dried flowers.

I'm Elle,

the voice behind The Rustic Elk. I believe every place has a story and every season has something worth noticing. This is my journal of food, travel, books, photography, and a life spent looking a little closer.


→ Meet Elle

Currently...

📖 Reading: We Used to Live Here
🎵 Listening: Church Bells + Cicadas
🍸 Savoring: Fresh Peach Margaritas
🌿 Growing: My Curiosity
🗺️ Planning: Salem, MA
📺 Watching: Oddity

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The Journal

  • Looking out over Banderas Bay at sunrise from Hotel Mousai in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
    Puerto Vallarta, Through My Eyes
  • Copy of Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom resting on a dark wooden surface with witchy decor and moon-themed accents.
    Slewfoot Review: The Book That Pulled Me Out of a Reading Slump

Recent Favorites

  • Slewfoot by Brom
  • Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
  • Company of Liars by Karen Maitland
  • The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Listen with Me

"If we are not remembered, we are more than dead, for it is as if we had never lived." Karen Maitland

Found Along the Way

An On-Brand Coffee Mug

Apparently, my entire personality now fits on one coffee mug. Magic. Coffee. Cats. I can't really argue with it.

Find it Here ->

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Building a life smelling of wild herbs and quiet rebellion since 2016.

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