on previous year’s stems or from the ground. They are loaded with minerals and vitamin C, and have a bright tart and astringent taste. The juicy berries are ripe April through June.
Taraxacum officinale | Spring to Fall | Non-native
Dandelions are common throughout the Northern hemisphere. Dandelions are a hardy, herbaceous perennial with a rosette base producing several flowering stems and multiple leaves. The leaves generally have toothed edges. The leaves and hollow flower stems grow directly from the rootstock with only one bright yellow flower per stem. The flower heads mature into spherical seed heads containing many single-seeded fruits. Its roots, leaves, and stems all exude a milky white sap.
Dandelion leaves, roots, and flowers are medicinal and edible. The leaves are high in vitamins and minerals, and the roots contain inulin, mucilage, latex resin, and teraxacin. Dandelion leaves can be added to a salad or cooked. They can also be dried and stored or blanched and frozen. Flowers can be made into juice, or added into many recipes. The root can be made into a coffee substitute. Harvest the tender leaves in early spring, buds anytime, flowers when fully open, and roots during the fall.
Stellaria media | Spring to Fall | Non-native
Chickweed is a cool-season annual that grows across North America in a wide variety of habitats and soil textures. It thrives in shady moist corners.
The whole plant will sprawl on flat ground or climb on other plants, and can grow up to 15 inches tall. It has weak slender stems, with hairs in a weave-like pattern only along one side of the stem. The leaves are oval and opposite pairs, and change position at each node. Flowers are small, white, and star-shaped. Seedpods are covered in tiny hairs and droop down.
Young chickweed has a pleasant, mild flavor. It can be blended raw into smoothies, pesto, and sauces. Harvest during the cool spring weather when it is growing rapidly, and during its second flush in the autumn.
Sambucus caerulea | Spring to Fall | Native
Blue Elderberry is a small deciduous tree found in sunny forest-edges with moist soils, below moderate elevation. They are common along stream banks, river banks, and open places.
Elder grows up to 20 feet high, with many long branches carrying opposite, lance-shaped, toothed leaves. Tiny star-shaped whitish-yellow flowers grow in sprays of dense flat shaped clusters. They bloom in early summer in lowlands and in late summer in the mountains. Deep blue berries develop in August through October and can get heavy enough that they cause branches to droop down toward the ground.
Unripe elderberries are poisonous. Raw berries can cause nausea and other gastro-intestinal upset. But cooked, ripe elderberries are perfectly edible when prepared properly. Elder flowers are harvested in spring when most of the flowers are open and others are budding. Elder berries can be harvested in late summer to early fall. Wait until shiny blue-black berries look powdery.
Gaultheria shallon | Summer | Native
Salal is found throughout the Pacific Northwest in coniferous forests. Salal is an evergreen that creeps into an erect shrub with hairy branching stems and dark, thick, leathery leaves.
Aside from being a popular addition in flower arrangements, salal is harvested for its edible berries and medicinal leaves. The berries are ripe during late summer when they are deep blue, plump and tasty. They can be used raw, cooked, or dried, and can be used like other berries in preserves, pies, drinks, and fruit leather. The leaves are used as a medicine for wounds, coughs, colds, and digestive problems, and can be made into a pleasant tea.
Rosa gymnocarpa | Fall to Winter | Native
Baldhip rose is located in the moist, shaded understory of Northwest forests in mountainous and riparian areas within eastern and southern exposures. It is a spindly deciduous shrub with brittle weak straight spines. Its leaves are alternate and compound, with an odd number of double-toothed leaflets. Its flowers are pink, single, small, and have 5 petals, and pink-rose in color dur