You might think that just because summer is over, so is the foraging season. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Many medicinal favorites just start coming into their vitality right around (or after) the first frost the season. In this week’s post I’ll tell you my four favorite medicinal plants to harvest in the fall.
Roots & Fruits
Nearly all of the plants I’ll mention here are roots or a fruits, which makes sense when you consider where plants are putting their energy right now. Like I mentioned in this Wildcrafting Guide, a key component to harvesting plants is knowing the best time to do it, and this includes knowing when to harvest what part of the plant. While you can endlessly dive into the intricacies of this practice (what time of day to harvest, when in the moon cycle to harvest), the very least all wildcrafters should know is when certain parts of the plant are in season.
In the fall, plants begin to draw their energy down into the root system (and away from the aerial parts of the plant) to store vitality for the winter ahead. For some fruit bearing plants, they may also still be putting energy into the development of these fruiting bodies.
So although you can still harvest some leafy plants this time of year to dry them for later use in the winter (and some people say the early spring greens like dandelion and chicory are delicious to harvest in the cool temps of fall, which mimic that of spring), I tend to focus on things like roots and fruits. Here are some of my favorites.
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