Flowers

So much foraging, with so little time to write here!

It’s the season of flowers, fruits, and summer fungi.

Plants are sending their energy up toward the sun, opening blossoms, attracting pollinators, getting ready to start ripening their seeds.

This is the time to make food and medicine from wildflowers. We’ve been making delicious cordials with milkweed and elderflower the last couple of seasons. Some sugar or honey dissolved in water, flowers, a little vinegar or lemon juice or sumac, a piece of berry cane or blueberries or grapes to add wild yeast, and five days or so of fermentation, plus a couple more to add fizziness. It’s like drinking the essence of the sun, filtered through these plants. There are recipes online.

You can then turn the cordial into wine, and that into vinegar, which we are very excited about. We are also experimenting with red clover and wild carrot flowers. There are plenty more candidates.

Try it out, before the season fades!