I have been meaning to sit down and write for the past three weeks. Instead, I’ve been out on the trails, gathering herbs, taking pictures, and bringing one more project into the kitchen. Late summer has kept me outside longer than planned. Between checking seed heads along the paths, watching how the trails change as the season winds down, and running a steady rotation of drying trays on my counter, foraging has taken most of my time. Gathering and observing come naturally when the weather is warm, but eventually everything brought into the kitchen needs to be put up, and it is time to return to the page and pick up where I left off with the St. John’s wort.

A month ago, I wrote about having to pour out my first attempt at an infused oil. That jar had gone moldy after two weeks because the fresh blossoms carried far too much natural moisture for the olive oil to handle. Pouring that batch out was frustrating. It felt like a waste of the plant’s harvest and a waste of good oil, but it was also the exact lesson I needed to learn. In home herbalism, when mold appears, you do not try to salvage the batch. You clean the glass, acknowledge where the process failed, and start over. I went straight back to the dehydrator, harvested a fresh batch of yellow flowers, and dried them completely until every petal was brittle and free of water. I packed them into a clean jar, poured fresh olive oil to the top, sealed the lid, and tucked it into a cool, dark cupboard.

Straining the four-week infusion

For four full weeks, that second jar stayed tucked away in the cupboard. Every day, I pulled the jar out to give it a gentle shake, watching the oil gradually deepen through the glass. When the month was up and I brought it to the counter to strain, the change was unmistakable. The pale olive oil had transformed into a deep, glowing brownish-red, showing that the dried flowers had released their properties into the oil without any moisture problems.

I set a mesh strainer over a large glass measuring bowl, lined it with several layers of cheesecloth, and poured the contents of the jar through. The spent flowers gathered in the cloth, heavy and dark after four weeks of steeping. I brought the corners of the cheesecloth together and gently pressed the remaining oil out, watching that rich red liquid pool at the bottom of the bowl.

At room temperature, the infused oil had very little noticeable smell. I placed chunks of yellow beeswax into a glass bowl set over a hot water bath on the stove and let the steam slowly melt the wax first, since beeswax requires a higher melting point than the oil. Once the wax had completely liquefied, I poured in the strained St. John’s wort oil, giving it just enough heat to remelt the wax and blend the two together smoothly.

That was the exact moment the scent rose with the steam and filled the entire kitchen. It was deeply rich, yet not weedy like fresh cut grass, nor sweet and floral like summer blossoms. It wasn’t musky either. It is a dense, grounded scent that is hard to pin down unless you are standing right over the pot. Once the wax and oil became a uniform, dark liquid, I carefully poured it into simple amber jars I picked up at the dollar store, marked the front of each with a piece of tape, and set them on the counter to cool into a solid balm.

Why I made this for my hands

I made this salve because my hands needed it. By late summer, after months of pulling weeds, digging in garden soil, handling rough stems, and working with tools, my skin shows the wear. The knuckles get sore, the fingertips dry out, and small cracks begin to appear along the thumb lines. Regular store-bought lotion tends to sit on the surface without giving tired skin what it needs to recover, and I wanted a dependable remedy right by my sink.

St. John’s wort has a long history of topical use for soothing rough skin, minor burns, and promoting tissue repair. Modern research looks closely at its active components, particularly hyperforin and hypericin, which are studied for their anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties, as well as their role in supporting skin barrier repair and soothing conditions like eczema and psoriasis. I am not making sweeping promises about what this salve will do, but I wanted an honest, simple preparation to rub into dry, cracked, work-worn hands at the end of the day. Starting over with dried flowers added four weeks to the timeline, but taking that extra time gave me a clean batch of salve that will last on my shelf, and I am looking forward to seeing how my skin responds over the coming weeks of outdoor work.

What a restart teaches us

Looking at the finished jars sitting on the counter, it is easy to forget the moldy jar from a month ago. But this salve only exists because that first jar failed. If that first attempt had not gone wrong, I wouldn’t have learned how sensitive oil infusions are to moisture, and I wouldn’t have developed the habit of drying the flowers completely before trying again.

The process of working with plants is rarely a straight line from gathering to finished product. We make mistakes in our timing, our preparations, or our storage. The temptation when a batch spoils is to feel discouraged or walk away from the project, but the important part is simply paying attention to what happened, adjusting the method, and giving it another try. This time, the flowers were dried first, the oil was shaken daily in the dark cupboard, the beeswax was melted properly before adding the oil, and the result is a kitchen remedy I can rely on.

This week’s practical step

If you have a project sitting unfinished on your counter—or an experiment in your garden or kitchen that didn’t go right the first time around—take some time this week to revisit it. Look at what happened, decide what needs to change, and begin again without guilt.

If you would like to keep learning alongside others who enjoy gardening, herbal preparations, and seasonal living, I’d love to welcome you into Grounded Gardeners. Paid subscribers join our weekly 60-minute live calls where we share current kitchen and garden experiments, troubleshoot projects together, and hold live Q&A sessions. You will also receive the downloadable gardening plan and journal PDF to help you map your beds and track your own observations through the seasons. To learn more contact me here: Grounded Gardeners Subscription.

Outside my door, I have a tiny plot with two comfrey plants and one feverfew. The comfrey leaves are enormous now, spilling over the edge of their little space and making the whole patch look fuller than it really is. I have included a photo because the size of those leaves makes me laugh. There is not much ground there, but it has been enough for plants I wanted close by.

Many people think they need a proper garden before they can begin: a large yard, raised beds, neat rows, and enough time to do it all well. But gardening can begin with one pot on a porch, a planter outside an apartment door, a balcony railing, a sunny windowsill, or a small patch of ground beside the house. The important thing is to choose something that works for the space you have and that you will be glad to use.

Start by Watching the Light

Before you buy seeds or plants, spend a day noticing where the sun falls. Watch the window, porch, patio, or bit of yard you are considering in the morning and again in the afternoon. A space that looks sunny when you first step outside may be shaded for most of the day, while a narrow spot against a wall may get several good hours of afternoon light.

That information will make choosing plants much easier. Herbs, strawberries, and most fruiting plants do best with plenty of direct sun. Leafy greens can manage with less, especially if you are growing them for a few fresh leaves at a time. If you are planting indoors, use the brightest window you have. A south-facing window is often a good choice, but any window with several hours of direct light is worth trying.

You do not need to figure out everything before you begin. One plant in one real space will tell you more than a stack of garden books. You will see whether the soil dries quickly, whether the window gets hot in the afternoon, and whether the plant seems to need more light than you can give it there. That is how you begin to understand the place where you live.

Containers Make More Space Possible

Containers are useful because they let you grow where there is no garden bed. A few pots can sit on a porch, a front step, a patio, or a small balcony. Choose pots with drainage holes and use potting soil rather than soil from the yard, which can pack down too tightly in containers and make it difficult for roots to grow.

Start with plants you will actually use. If you cook, grow parsley, basil, thyme, or chives. If you make tea, try mint or lemon balm, though mint is best planted by itself because it will quickly take over a shared pot. Calendula is another good choice if you would like flowers you can enjoy and harvest. You do not need to fill every available container at once. A few plants give you enough to care for without turning a new interest into another chore.

As the season goes on, you will learn which pot needs watering first, which one stays too wet after rain, and which plants want more room. Those small details are what make gardening feel less mysterious.

You Can Grow Fruit Indoors

If you do not have outdoor space, or if you want something growing through the colder months, you can begin with fruit indoors. It helps to choose a smaller variety and to be realistic about the light available in your home. Fruiting plants generally need more direct light than herbs or ordinary houseplants, so a bright window matters.

Alpine strawberries are compact and grow well in pots or hanging baskets. A dwarf Meyer lemon is a good option for someone with a very sunny window and room for a larger container. Some smaller fig varieties can also be grown indoors, provided they have enough light and space. Strawberries and citrus may need hand-pollinating when kept inside. If flowers appear, you can use a small paintbrush to move pollen gently between them.

You do not need an indoor orchard. One strawberry plant or a small citrus tree is plenty to begin with. It gives you the chance to watch a plant through more than one stage: new leaves, flowers, and, with the right conditions, fruit. The Spruce’s list of fruits to grow indoors is a useful reference if you want to see a few more possibilities.

Choose Something You Will Reach For

The best first plant is usually one that already has a place in your daily life. Plant herbs if you want to cut them for dinner. Grow calendula if you would like to gather the flowers. Plant strawberries if the idea of picking one from a pot makes you happy. Your first garden does not need to produce all your food or look impressive to anyone else. A handful of herbs, one ripe berry, or a pot you check each morning is a real beginning.

Paid members are welcome to bring their own questions to our weekly live calls, where we can talk through your particular space and what will grow there. Whether you have one windowsill, a few pots, a balcony, or a yard that feels too large to know where to begin, I can help you make a plan that fits what you have.

What is the first thing you would grow in the smallest space you have? I will personally answer every reply.

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When I work with a plant, I begin by paying attention to what is in front of me. I notice where it is growing, what the leaves look like, how the season is affecting it, and what I already know before I decide what else there is to learn.

That kind of observation is at the heart of everything I share here.

I am Holly McColm—a medic, forager, herbologist, author, and healing guide. My work has brought me into close contact with food, plants, health, safety, and the ways ordinary knowledge can help us care for ourselves and our homes.

This Substack is where I write about that work as I continue learning and practicing it.

I am interested in the skills that make life feel a little more familiar and manageable: growing food, learning the plants around us, preserving what we have, making simple preparations, and becoming more thoughtful about the ways we care for our bodies and our homes.

Those skills do not require a large property or a complete change in lifestyle. A garden might be a few containers on an apartment balcony. It might be a windowsill where you are learning to keep one useful plant alive. It might be a patch of ground that has been waiting for your attention.

The place where you begin matters less than beginning with care.

What I write about

The subjects here grow from the seasons and from the questions that come up while working with plants, food, health, and home.

You will find writing about:

• Gardening in the space you already have.

• Foraging and learning to identify plants carefully.

• Herbal medicine and the importance of observation.

• Growing and preserving food.

• Simple preparedness skills that create confidence rather than fear.

• The relationship between what we eat, how we live, and how we care for our homes.

• The practical lessons that come from working with seasons, soil, plants, and the body.

Some pieces will be personal reflections. Others will offer a skill, an observation, or a place to begin. I want the writing to remain useful without losing the questions and experiences that make this work meaningful to me.

Only a few generations ago, many of these skills were ordinary parts of household life. People expected to preserve food when it was available, save what could be used later, and learn the plants that grew around them. Much of that knowledge has become less familiar, but it has not disappeared.

We can learn it again, slowly and honestly, without pretending that we need to master everything at once.

Free subscribers

Free subscribers receive my weekly writing about food, health, home, gardening, foraging, and plant knowledge.

These posts are a place to consider what is growing around us, what our households need, and which small skills might be worth learning next. I share what I am noticing, studying, making, and practicing, along with the mistakes and questions that come with doing this work in real life.

If you are new here, you can begin by reading the free posts that speak most directly to the season you are in or the skill you want to develop.

Paid subscribers

Paid membership is for readers who want to come closer to the practical work and have more opportunity to learn with me directly.

Paid subscribers receive:

• Weekly live, 60-minute calls that include a brief presentation, discussion, and live questions and answers.

• Access to my current experiments and observations as I work with plants, food, gardens, and home skills.

• A garden planning and journal PDF for mapping your space and noticing patterns over time.

• One-on-one garden planning guidance designed around the space you actually have, whether that is a window, an apartment, a small yard, or a larger garden.

The garden journal is not meant to measure your performance or give you another set of expectations to keep up with. It is a place to record what you are noticing so that your decisions can become more informed from season to season.

The live calls offer a place to bring questions that are specific to your own circumstances. You may be trying to decide what to grow, how to use a limited space, how to begin preserving food, or which practical skill to learn first.

Paid subscriptions are $10 per month or $100 per year.

If you would like to learn alongside me more closely, I would be glad to welcome you as a paid subscriber.

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Where to begin

This week, look at the space you already have before deciding what you need to buy or build.

Notice how much light reaches it. Pay attention to the places where water gathers or drains away. Look at what is already growing there, even if you do not yet know the names of the plants. Write down one thing you would like to grow, one thing you would like to learn, and one question you still have.

That is enough for a beginning.

A relationship with plants develops through repeated attention. The more closely we observe, the more familiar the work becomes, and the easier it is to recognize what needs care.

If you would like to keep learning about gardening, herbs, food, and practical preparedness, you are welcome to subscribe for free. If you would like closer access to my methods, live conversations, and garden-planning support, I would love to have you join us as a paid subscriber.

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The trails I walk regularly have a way of changing just enough to keep me attentive. Paths that seemed dormant or overgrown a week ago are suddenly occupied by new growth, shifting the landscape in ways that require me to look again. This week, it was tansy that caught my eye. It was growing along the side of one of my many trails, standing upright among the summer grasses with its small, yellow, button-like flowers gathered at the tops of the stems. Once you’ve learned to recognize that specific cluster of gold, it becomes impossible to miss, even when it’s tucked away among more aggressive weeds.

After identifying it as common tansy, Tanacetum vulgare, I harvested a small amount to bring home. I don’t believe in gathering more than I need, especially when I am still getting to know a plant. There is a quiet responsibility that comes with harvesting; you want to ensure the plant is healthy, the location is clean, and that you are leaving enough behind for the trail to keep its own character. I brought those few stems back to my kitchen and put them in the dehydrator, which is how I dry all of my herbs. It is less messy than hanging bunches around the house, and it gives me a more consistent way to remove the moisture before storing them. As the tansy dried, the scent that filled the kitchen reminded me immediately of yarrow—green, sharp, and familiar.

It is an interesting thing to notice how plants in the same family often share a language of scent before they ever reveal their individual properties to us. I have not tasted the tea yet, and I am in no hurry to do so. For now, I am content to observe the dried tansy and learn more about it before deciding whether it belongs in my cup.

A Reminder to Move Slowly

Tansy is not a plant I would ever suggest approaching casually. While it has a long history in traditional medicine, it is also a plant that asks for a high degree of knowledge and caution. It contains compounds, including thujone, that can be harmful if used incorrectly or in excessive amounts. It isn’t appropriate for everyone—certainly not during pregnancy, and it requires a careful look at allergies or existing medications before it ever enters a cup.

In our current culture, there is often a push to find a “natural” version of every remedy as if the word natural is a synonym for harmless. I don’t find that to be true. Real herbalism isn’t about finding easy alternatives; it’s about respect. It is about understanding that a plant with the power to heal often carries a chemical complexity that requires us to be more than just consumers—it requires us to be students.

I’m currently focusing on the traditional use of tansy tea for digestive health, but that research is happening on paper and through observation before it happens in my kitchen. I want to understand the history of this plant, the way others have prepared it for generations, and the specific cautions that belong to it. Only then will I decide if it belongs on my permanent shelf. Taking that time isn’t hesitation; it’s a way of honoring the potency of what grows around us.

When the Infusion Goes Wrong

That same lesson of patience and observation has been playing out with the St. John’s wort I mentioned recently. A few weeks ago, I was excited to begin my first infusion using fresh flowers and olive oil. I had seen the bright yellow blooms and knew they carried that hidden red oil inside, and I looked forward to the shift in color that usually follows a successful preparation. But when I checked the jar after about two weeks, I realized things had gone wrong.

The moisture from the fresh flowers had been too much for the olive oil to handle, and the batch had gone to mold. I felt a genuine sadness as I looked at the waste. It is never easy to discard something you’ve carefully harvested, and it felt like a loss of both the plant’s gift and the good oil I had used to cover it. But mold isn’t something you can negotiate with. In home herbalism, you have to be honest enough to recognize when a project has failed and humble enough to pour it out.

I decided to start over, but with a different approach. This time, I am using thoroughly dried flowers and fresh olive oil. By removing the moisture from the equation, I’m giving the infusion a better chance to succeed, even if it feels a little less “immediate” than using fresh blooms. It was a good, if difficult, reminder to start small when you are working with a plant or a method for the first time. We want to be right, but more importantly, we want our preparations to be safe. It is much easier to learn from a small pint-sized mistake than to lose a large harvest.

The Value of the Restart

As the new St. John’s wort rests in its jar and the tansy continues to dry, I find myself thinking about how much of our lives are built through these small restarts. We watch, we try, we fail, and we begin again. Nature is a patient teacher in that way. It doesn’t criticize us for the moldy jar or the misidentified stem; it simply offers another season and another chance to pay attention.

The goal of a home apothecary isn’t to have a shelf full of perfect labels and flawless tinctures. It is to develop the kind of steady, practical resilience that comes from working with the world as it actually is. Sometimes that means smelling yarrow in a drying tansy leaf, and sometimes it means pouring out a jar of oil that didn’t go the way you hoped. Both are part of the same thread.

This week, I invite you to look at something familiar with a bit more respect. If you find yourself in the middle of a project that isn’t working, or looking at a plant you don’t fully understand yet, don’t feel pressured to force a result. There is just as much knowledge to be found in the slow observation and the occasional restart as there is in the final salve.

If you’d like to keep learning alongside others who enjoy gardening, herbs, and practical preparedness, I’d love to welcome you into Grounded Gardeners.

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For the last few weeks, I have been noticing bright yellow flowers growing nearby. They do not have a distinctive fragrance that reaches out and catches you as you walk past. You have to see them first. The flowers are small and clear yellow, gathered in loose clusters at the ends of their stems, and they have a way of blending into the rest of summer until you have noticed them enough times that they begin to stand out everywhere.

That is usually how a plant enters my life. It does not arrive with a sign or an introduction. I see it once, then again somewhere else. I begin to notice the shape of its leaves, the way it grows, whether it appears alone or in a group. Before long, I find myself wondering what it is and what I have missed by walking past it before.

When a plant—or an animal—makes itself known to me, I pay attention.

This one is St. John’s wort, Hypericum perforatum. I had heard of it, of course, but knowing a plant’s name is different from actually meeting it where it grows. It is different again to bring some home and begin working with it. This is a new plant to me, and I am approaching it that way: with curiosity, care, and the understanding that I have more to learn than I have to say about it.

The more closely I looked, the more there was to see. St. John’s wort has five-petaled flowers with a generous cluster of fine stamens at the center. Along the edges of the petals are tiny dark dots, so small that they are easy to miss if you are only looking at the flower from a distance. Its leaves have translucent glands that become visible when held up to the light, making them appear as though someone has pricked them with a needle. That detail is part of the reason for its botanical name: perforatum, or perforated.

It is a good reminder that familiar-looking things are often not simple. Sometimes they only ask us to look again.

The Red Hidden Inside the Yellow

The first detail about St. John’s wort that surprised me was the color it carries beneath all that yellow. Crush a flower bud between your fingers, and it can leave a reddish or purplish stain behind. Fresh flowers infused in oil may gradually turn that oil a deep red. It is one of those transformations that seems unlikely until you have seen the beginning of it with your own eyes.

The flowers I harvested are now resting beneath olive oil in a jar. I used fresh flowers and put the jar away in a cool, dark place. Olive oil does not belong in direct light, and I see no reason to treat an infused oil differently. The flowers are submerged, the lid is on, and now the process has moved beyond my hands for a while. There is nothing to do but let time do the portion of the work that belongs to it.

I have always liked this part of making medicine at home. The jar itself is not dramatic. It is only flowers and oil, sitting quietly on a shelf. But it holds a decision to pay attention to what is growing around us and to learn a little more than we knew last season. It holds a willingness to begin before we have everything mastered.

At some point, the oil will be strained. Then I will warm it gently with beeswax and pour it into a jar to make a salve. Beeswax changes the character of an oil without changing what the oil is. It gives it structure. It makes it easier to carry, easier to keep in a drawer or tuck into a bag, ready when it is wanted. I have always appreciated that kind of usefulness: nothing fancy, nothing that needs an explanation, just something made carefully and kept close at hand.

When Familiar Things Are Not Enough

My hands have been hurting lately, and the familiar things I have tried have not been enough. I do not know yet whether St. John’s wort salve will be what my hands need. This is my first time working with this plant, and I have no interest in turning a new experience into a promise before it has had time to become one.

But I had been noticing these yellow flowers. I had seen them often enough that I understood they were asking for my attention. When that happens, I listen.

There is a tendency to think that practical knowledge means having all the answers ready before a question arrives. I do not believe that is true. Real knowledge also includes knowing how to slow down when something unfamiliar enters your life. It means taking the time to identify a plant correctly, to learn how others have worked with it, and to make a small preparation before deciding whether it belongs among the things you keep on your shelf.

That is not uncertainty in the sense of being lost. It is humility. It is the understanding that plants are not trends, and they are not decorations for the kitchen counter. Each one has its own qualities, its own season, its own history, and its own ways of being useful. Some become familiar quickly. Others take years. Either way, the relationship begins with noticing.

St. John’s wort has a long history of use in herbal traditions, particularly in preparations made from the flowering tops. Its common name is connected to the season when it often blooms, near St. John the Baptist’s feast day in late June. In parts of Europe, it was traditionally gathered around midsummer and kept in homes or hung near doorways. I like knowing that people before us noticed this same yellow flower in the middle of summer and found ways to carry some part of it into the months ahead.

I do not need to borrow all of their meanings to appreciate the thread that connects us. A plant was growing. Someone noticed. Someone learned its name, its season, and the ways it could be prepared. Then they passed that knowledge along.

What Curiosity Can Put on the Shelf

By the time this jar becomes a salve, the season will have moved forward. The flowers will have changed, the heat will shift, and summer will begin doing what it always does: gathering itself toward something else. But there will be a little jar on my shelf that was not there before. It will hold olive oil, beeswax, and the deep red color drawn from flowers that first caught my attention beside the road. That is enough for now.

I do not have to know the end of the story before I begin it. I can learn a plant’s name, notice its small details, make one careful preparation, and let experience tell me more over time. That is how a home apothecary grows. Not all at once, and not through collecting every herb someone else says we ought to have. It grows through attention. One plant, one season, one jar at a time.

This week, I will keep watching the St. John’s wort as the oil rests in the dark. I will watch for the shift in color and wait until it is ready to become something else. In the meantime, I will keep an eye out for the plants that have been quietly appearing around me. There are often more teachers nearby than we realize.

Nature has always been willing to teach us. We only have to learn how to notice.

If you’d like to keep learning alongside others who enjoy plants, practical skills, and the quiet work of becoming more familiar with the world around us, I’d love to welcome you into Grounded Gardeners.

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My kitchen has been full of berries this week.

I bought raspberries from one of the many farms in the Fraser Valley, and I picked blueberries at a local U-pick. The raspberries have been canned and frozen, and the blueberries are tucked away beside them. They are simple things to put aside now, while the fruit is sweet and plentiful, but I know how welcome they will be when the garden is quiet and winter has settled in.

The haws came from the forest. I gathered them carefully, taking only what I needed and leaving plenty behind. As I write this, they are drying in the dehydrator, their bright red color slowly deepening as the moisture leaves them. Blackberry season is just beginning, and I have buckets ready for when the bushes begin to offer their fruit in earnest.

This is the work of summer. It does not always arrive at a convenient moment, but it arrives when it is ready.

The Work That Comes With Abundance

There is a short window when berries are at their best. The blueberries are ripe at the U-pick, the raspberries are arriving at the farm stands, and the haws are ready in the forest. Then, before we know it, the blackberries begin. Each one has its own time, and the season asks us to pay attention.

That is one of the things I appreciate most about gathering and preserving food. It brings us back into a relationship with the calendar that has nothing to do with appointments or deadlines. The berries do not ripen because we have finally cleared an afternoon. They ripen in response to sun, rain, soil, and the quiet work of the plants themselves. If we want to make use of what is being offered, we learn to notice the season and make room for it.

Only a few generations ago, this kind of work was expected. When fruit was ready, families gathered it, preserved it, and put it away because that was simply part of caring for a household. Canning jars lined pantry shelves. Fruit was dried. Freezers, if a family had one, were filled a little at a time. The work was practical, but it also carried a feeling of security. There was comfort in looking at a shelf or freezer and knowing that some of summer had been saved.

A Pantry Grows Slowly

It can be easy to look at a pantry and think it needs to be full all at once. But that is not how most useful pantries are built. They grow through small decisions, repeated through the seasons.

A few jars of raspberries may become winter desserts or a welcome addition to a breakfast. A bag of blueberries can become muffins, pancakes, or something warm when fresh fruit is months away. Dried haws may become part of a tea or another preparation later in the year. Each small batch holds more than food. It holds the memory of gathering, washing, sorting, and taking the time to preserve something while it was at its best.

This is not about trying to do everything perfectly. It is about learning what you can manage, what your family will use, and what feels worth your time. Some years you may preserve more. Some years, a few bags in the freezer are enough. The important thing is beginning to recognize the abundance around you and letting it teach you its rhythm.

Gratitude With a Practical Shape

I am grateful for the farms throughout the Fraser Valley, for the growers who make it possible to bring home berries grown close to where we live. I am grateful for the chance to pick blueberries myself, because gathering food changes the way we see it. A berry in a basket is no longer only something to buy. It becomes the result of a warm day in the field, a little patience, and the steady generosity of the plants.

I am grateful for the forest, too, and for the reminder that wild gathering requires a different kind of attention. We need to know the plants we are gathering, take care not to overharvest, and leave enough behind for the birds, animals, and continued health of the plant. The forest offers food, but it also teaches restraint and observation.

Nature has always been willing to teach us. We only have to learn how to notice.

For now, I am going to keep filling jars, making space in the freezer, and keeping those buckets nearby for blackberry season. The kitchen may be busy, and the counters may stay sticky for a while, but this is the kind of busy I welcome. It is the work of keeping summer close.

This week, notice what is becoming plentiful where you live. It might be berries, herbs, tomatoes, apples, or a neighbor with more zucchini than they can use. Choose one small thing to gather, preserve, or share. You do not need a perfect pantry or an entire free afternoon to begin. One bag in the freezer, one jar on the shelf, or one new plant you learn to recognize is a meaningful start.

For paid subscribers, we will spend more time learning the seasons and the practical ways to preserve what summer gives us. Through weekly live calls, seasonal guidance, garden planning, and one-on-one consultations, we will build these skills together in a way that feels useful and manageable. I would love to have you join us.

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Looking Down

I went for a walk this morning along a trail I’ve taken more times than I can count. The air still carried the scent of last night’s rain, and everything seemed a little greener than it had a week ago. Along the edge of the path, plantain spread its broad leaves across the ground, clover filled the open spaces between the grass, and yarrow was beginning to stretch toward the summer sun.

As people passed, I found myself paying less attention to them than to what was growing around us. Some were walking their dogs, others were catching up with a friend, and a few disappeared into whatever they were listening to through their headphones. Nearly all of us were following the same trail, but we weren’t seeing the same things.

It reminded me how much of the natural world has quietly faded into the background of our daily lives. These plants haven’t become rare or difficult to find. They’ve simply become unfamiliar because there hasn’t been much reason to notice them.

When the Backyard Fed the Family

A few generations ago, that kind of familiarity was much more common. The space behind the house often served a purpose beyond mowing grass. Vegetable gardens filled the summer months, fruit trees marked the passing of the seasons, and preserving food was simply another job to finish before winter arrived.

During World War II, Victory Gardens supplied nearly forty percent of the fresh vegetables consumed in the United States. Families planted gardens because the country needed them, but the knowledge that came with growing food didn’t disappear when the war ended. For many households, it remained an ordinary part of life for years afterward.

People understood when the peas were ready to pick because they had planted them. They knew when apples were ready because they had watched them grow. Herbs weren’t something you found in a plastic container. They were clipped from the garden or gathered nearby while supper was cooking.

It wasn’t a movement or a lifestyle. It was simply the way many families lived.

The Cost of Convenience

Life looks different today, and in many ways that’s a good thing. We have access to foods that our grandparents would have considered a luxury, and grocery stores make it possible to put a healthy meal on the table without spending every evening working in the garden.

At the same time, convenience has quietly changed our relationship with the seasons.

Fresh strawberries appear in the middle of winter. Tomatoes are available long before local gardens have warmed enough to grow them. We don’t have to wait for asparagus in the spring or squash in the fall because someone, somewhere, is growing them for us.

The seasons still arrive on schedule, but they no longer shape our routines the way they once did. Unless we’re paying attention, spring can come and go without noticing the first dandelions blooming or the fruit trees beginning to flower. The calendar tells us what month it is, while the landscape continues keeping its own time.

Learning the Land Again

Learning about plants has changed the way I spend time outdoors, although not in the way I expected.

When I first became interested in herbs, I thought I was learning about medicine. Then I started gardening and thought I was learning about growing food. Eventually, I realized I was really learning to pay attention.

A walk became an opportunity to notice what had changed since the week before. The first cottonwood buds appeared in early spring. Plantain seemed to thrive almost anywhere people walked. Yarrow returned to the same places year after year, as dependable as an old friend. Each season introduced something new, but it also welcomed back what had been there all along.

That kind of familiarity grows slowly. You don’t wake up one morning knowing every plant around you. You learn one, then another, and before long the landscape begins to feel less anonymous. The places you visit every day become richer because you understand a little more about what you’re seeing.

The same has been true with growing food. Every season teaches something different. Some lessons come from a basket full of tomatoes, while others arrive after watching insects claim the cabbage before you do. Either way, the garden has a way of rewarding patience, curiosity, and the willingness to try again next year.

An Invitation

This week, I’d like to encourage you to take a walk with no destination in mind. Wander through your neighborhood, a local park, or your own backyard and spend a little time looking at what is growing around you. You don’t need to identify every plant you see. Just choose one that catches your attention and learn its name.

The next time you pass that same spot, you’ll probably notice it again. A few weeks later, you may see how it has changed with the season. That’s how knowledge is built—not all at once, but through small moments of observation that gradually become familiar.

Those moments have a way of changing more than you expect. The landscape begins to feel less like something you pass through and more like a place you know. Food tastes different when you’ve watched it grow, herbs become more meaningful when you’ve gathered them yourself, and the changing seasons stop feeling like dates on a calendar.

If you’d like to keep learning alongside others who enjoy gardening, herbs, preparedness, and seasonal living, I’d love to welcome you into Grounded Gardeners. We meet each week to share what we’re growing, what we’re learning, and the practical skills that help us become a little more familiar with the world just outside our doors.

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Meeting Fireweed for the First Time

There are some plants you notice once and never forget. Fireweed is one of them. The first time I came across a stand of fireweed in full bloom, I stopped walking and just stood there. Tall, slender stems lined the edge of an old logging road, each one lit up with clusters of rose-pink flowers so vivid they almost didn’t look real. The petals were thin, nearly translucent, catching the light in a way that made the whole hillside glow. I remember thinking that a plant this beautiful had to be more than decoration.

It turns out I was right.

Fireweed, known botanically as Chamerion angustifolium or Epilobium angustifolium, is one of the most versatile and generous wild plants in the Northern Hemisphere. It has fed and healed people for centuries. Indigenous communities across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska valued it deeply, not only as food and medicine but as a plant worth protecting and even claiming ownership over. In parts of British Columbia, high-status families maintained rights over the most productive fireweed patches, a fact that tells you something about how seriously this plant was regarded.

And yet, for many of us, fireweed is a plant we drive past without a second glance.

How to Recognize It

One of the things I appreciate most about fireweed is that it is not difficult to identify, even for someone who is just beginning to learn wild plants. It tends to grow in large patches rather than as isolated individuals, which makes it easier to spot from a distance. The stems are tall and upright, often reaching four to six feet, occasionally taller, with a reddish-purple tint that becomes more pronounced as the season progresses. The leaves are long and narrow, arranged alternately along the stem, dark green on top with a silvery underside. If you look closely, you will notice a distinctive light-colored central vein running the length of each leaf, with smaller veins that curve and loop together before reaching the edge. That vein pattern is one of the most reliable features for identification.

The flowers are what draw most people in. They bloom in a long, elegant spike at the top of the stem, opening progressively from the bottom upward throughout the summer. Each flower has four petals in shades of pink to rose-purple. In some regions, particularly in Alaska, people say that when the flowers reach the top of the spike, winter is not far behind. After blooming, the plant produces long, narrow seed capsules that eventually split open and release hundreds of tiny seeds, each attached to a tuft of silky white fluff that carries them on the wind. A single fireweed plant can produce as many as eighty thousand seeds in a season.

One important note for foragers: be mindful not to confuse fireweed with foxglove, which also produces tall spikes of pink to purple flowers. Foxglove is toxic. The flowers are quite different in shape once you compare them side by side, but if you are new to plant identification, it is worth taking the time to learn the distinction clearly before harvesting.

Where to Find It

Fireweed is a pioneer species, which means it is often one of the first plants to establish itself in areas that have been disturbed. Burns, clear-cuts, roadsides, railroad embankments, open meadows, and forest edges are all places where fireweed thrives. It is drawn to sunlight and tends to appear in areas where the canopy has been opened up and the soil has been exposed.

This is where the plant gets its common name. After a wildfire moves through, fireweed is frequently among the first living things to return. It appeared in abundance following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, and it was one of the early plants to reestablish itself in the bombed-out landscapes of London after World War II. It’s a plant whose response to destruction is to show up and start the work of restoration. Its root networks help stabilize disturbed soil, and its presence creates conditions that allow other plants to follow. Fireweed doesn’t just survive disruption—it begins to heal it.

It grows across much of North America, from sea level to the subalpine zone, and can be found throughout Europe and northern Asia as well. If you spend any time walking through open areas during the summer months, there is a reasonable chance you have already seen it.

A Plant You Can Eat

Nearly every part of fireweed is edible at some point during its growing season. The young shoots, harvested in spring when they are still tender and only a few inches tall, have a flavor often compared to asparagus. They can be eaten raw or cooked and are surprisingly rich in vitamins A and C as well as flavonoids. As the plant matures, the leaves can be used fresh or dried for tea. In Russia, fireweed tea has been consumed for centuries under the name Ivan Chai, and it remains a beloved traditional drink.

The flowers are edible as well and can be used to make jellies and syrups. Even the inner pith of the stem has value. Before the plant flowers, the pith can be eaten raw or used as a natural thickener. The roots are edible too, though they tend to be more bitter and are generally considered a survival food rather than a first choice.

Fireweed honey, produced by bees that frequent the blooms, is sometimes called the champagne of honeys for its light color and delicate flavor. If you are fortunate enough to find it at a local market, it is worth trying.

Medicine Growing Along the Roadside

Beyond its value as food, fireweed has a long history of medicinal use. It has been relied upon by indigenous communities, nineteenth-century herbalists, and modern practitioners for its anti-inflammatory and astringent properties. The leaves and roots have traditionally been used to support digestive health, soothe irritated tissue in the gut, and help restore balance after illness. It has also been used for respiratory complaints, sore throats, and skin irritations.

The plant contains compounds like quercetin and oenothein, which contribute to its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. While I am not suggesting that fireweed replaces professional medical care, I do think there is real value in knowing that a plant growing along the edge of the road has been used for generations to support health in meaningful ways. That knowledge creates options, and options are what resilience is built on.

More Than a Pretty Flower

Fireweed is the official floral emblem of Canada’s Yukon Territory, and once you begin to understand what this plant offers, it is easy to see why. It is beautiful, resilient, generous, and deeply practical. It feeds people. It supports health. It stabilizes damaged landscapes and provides nectar for pollinators. It is one of those plants that gives far more than it asks for in return.

I think fireweed also teaches something worth remembering. It shows up in the places that have been most disrupted. It does not wait for perfect conditions. It roots itself in the rubble and begins to grow, and in doing so, it makes it possible for other life to follow. There is a lesson in that for all of us. We do not need to wait for everything to be perfect before we begin. We can start where we are, with what we have, and trust that the effort will lead somewhere worthwhile.

The next time you see a patch of fireweed glowing along a roadside or standing tall at the edge of a clearing, I hope you will stop for a moment. Look at those translucent petals. Notice the way the flowers open from the bottom of the spike upward, measuring the progress of summer as they go. And remember that this plant, like so many others growing quietly around us, is offering something valuable to anyone willing to pay attention.

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I didn’t grow up believing the grocery store was where food came from.

I grew up on a farm and ranch where food was something we raised, harvested, preserved, and shared. The grocery store existed, of course, but it wasn’t the center of our food system. We went there for essentials, but most of what found its way onto our table came from the land around us and the work we put into it. Growing up, I learned how to butcher chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigs, sheep, cattle, and wild game. Deer and moose were not unusual sights in our freezer. Gardens were simply part of life, and preserving food wasn’t a special skill reserved for a handful of homesteaders. It was a normal part of feeding a family through the changing seasons.

When I left the farm and moved to the city, I slowly adopted the habits that many people do. The grocery store became my primary source of food because it was convenient and because that was simply how modern life worked. Looking back, I don’t think I realized how much knowledge and connection I had left behind until years later. Over the last decade, I have spent a great deal of time retracing those steps, returning to growing food, foraging, preserving harvests, and making natural medicines. The journey has reminded me of something I learned long ago but had nearly forgotten: the grocery store is not the only place to shop.

As food prices continue to rise, I find myself thinking less about the numbers on the shelf and more about what those numbers are trying to teach us. The cost of groceries may be getting our attention, but the deeper lesson is about resilience. Many of us have become dependent on a system that exists almost entirely outside of our control. When the grocery store becomes our only connection to food, every shortage, disruption, or price increase feels personal because we have very few alternatives. That isn’t meant to create fear. In many ways, it is an invitation to remember that there are other ways to provide for ourselves and our families.

The Skills We Were Never Meant to Lose

For most of human history, people understood that food came from many places. It came from gardens and orchards, from local farmers and backyard chickens, from community relationships and carefully stocked pantries. People knew how to preserve food when it was abundant so they could enjoy it during leaner months. They knew which wild plants could be gathered for food and medicine. They knew how to save seeds, mend tools, and work together when a harvest needed bringing in.

Many of those skills were not lost because they stopped being valuable. They were lost because modern convenience made them seem unnecessary.

The challenge with convenience is that it often asks us to trade competence for comfort. At first, it feels like a good bargain. Why grow tomatoes when you can buy them year-round? Why learn to preserve food when everything is available with a quick trip to the store? Why spend time learning medicinal plants when there is a pharmacy on every corner?

The answer is not that grocery stores, pharmacies, or modern conveniences are bad. The answer is that dependence on any single system creates vulnerability. When we lose the skills that connect us to our food and our health, we also lose a measure of confidence in our ability to care for ourselves. Rebuilding those skills is not about rejecting modern life. It is about creating options and strengthening our ability to adapt when circumstances change.

The good news is that these skills can be relearned. You do not need to own a farm or live in the country. You do not need acres of land, expensive equipment, or years of experience. You can start with a few herbs on a windowsill, a small raised bed in the backyard, or a simple lesson in preserving seasonal produce. Every skill you gain increases your resilience, and every step you take reconnects you with knowledge that served humanity well for generations.

Resilience Grows in Community

One of the biggest misconceptions about preparedness is the idea that resilience is something we build alone. In reality, some of the most resilient communities throughout history were those where people relied on one another. They shared knowledge, exchanged resources, and worked together to solve problems. No one person knew everything, but collectively they knew enough.

This is one of the reasons I believe community is becoming more important than ever. In a world where many people spend their evenings isolated in front of screens, we have fewer opportunities to build meaningful relationships with the people who live around us. We may know more about what is happening across the world than we do about the people on our own street.

Food resilience becomes much easier when we start rebuilding those connections. Maybe one neighbor grows more tomatoes than they can use. Another keeps chickens. Someone else knows how to can vegetables or repair tools. A local farmer may offer produce, eggs, or meat directly to the community. These relationships create a network of support that no supermarket can replace.

The strongest communities are not built during emergencies. They are built long before they are needed. They grow through conversations, shared meals, exchanged knowledge, and a willingness to help one another. When we invest in those relationships, we create something far more valuable than a stocked pantry. We create a community that can weather challenges together.

Small Steps Toward Food Sovereignty

Food sovereignty does not mean producing every calorie you consume or becoming completely self-sufficient. For most people, that would neither be practical nor necessary. Instead, it means gradually increasing your ability to participate in your own food system rather than remaining entirely dependent on someone else’s.

For one person, that may mean growing herbs on a balcony. For another, it may mean supporting local farmers instead of purchasing everything from large chains. Someone else may decide to learn how to preserve food, start a small garden, or identify a handful of edible and medicinal plants in their area. There is no perfect starting point and no single path that fits everyone.

What matters is taking the first step.

Every tomato you grow, every seed you save, every skill you learn, and every relationship you build increases your resilience. More importantly, it changes the way you think about food. Instead of seeing food as something that appears on a shelf, you begin to understand it as something connected to people, places, seasons, and community.

That understanding creates a kind of security that cannot be purchased. It comes from knowing that even when circumstances change, you have options. You have knowledge. You have relationships. You have skills that no economic uncertainty can take away from you.

A Return to What Matters

I don’t believe the answer to rising food costs is panic, and I don’t believe the answer is trying to do everything at once. The answer is to begin where you are and to remember that resilience is built over time. A garden starts with a single seed. A pantry is stocked one jar at a time. A community grows through one conversation, one shared skill, and one helping hand after another.

The grocery store will continue to be part of our lives, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem arises when we forget that it is only one option among many. The more we reconnect with growing, preserving, foraging, learning, and building community, the more freedom we gain. We become less vulnerable to circumstances beyond our control and more confident in our ability to provide for ourselves and those we love.

Perhaps that is the real opportunity hidden within rising food prices. They are reminding us to look beyond the supermarket aisles and rediscover the skills, relationships, and traditions that have sustained people for generations. In doing so, we may find that what we have been searching for was never just cheaper food. It was a deeper connection to our food, our communities, and ourselves.

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I’ve spent the better part of the last week noticing horsetail in places I usually overlook. It’s strange how you can walk the same path behind your place for years, feeling like you know every dip in the soil and every bend in the creek, only to have a plant suddenly “announce” itself. It isn’t subtle about it, either; it just starts showing up in numbers, repeating its bristly, green shape along the damp banks until you finally stop, let your eyes land, and realize you’ve been missing a whole conversation happening at your feet.

That’s exactly what horsetail has been doing lately. It’s claiming the low, wet ground where the air feels a few degrees cooler, and once you recognize that ancient, stubborn look it has, it becomes impossible to ignore. I’m currently drying a batch of it for later uses, which got me thinking about the way I actually live with herbs—not as miracle headlines, but as steady, practical allies that I only reach for when I’m clear on what they actually do. Preparedness isn’t just about having jars on a shelf; it’s about having a relationship with the land that is built on honesty rather than the hope of a quick fix.

The plant that keeps reappearing

Horsetail feels like it belongs to a different era of the earth, and it doesn’t try to charm you with flowers or soft textures. It’s stiff and structural, which is part of why I’ve come to trust it in a fieldcraft sense—when a plant grows with that kind of persistence year after year, your nervous system starts to register it as reliable. In a home apothecary, reliability is far more valuable than a “trendy” ingredient. The herbs that actually matter are the ones you can identify with certainty, harvest responsibly, and preserve well enough that they become a functional part of your real-life toolkit.

Most people associate horsetail with silica, and by extension, the health of hair, skin, nails, and bones. While I’m not here to sell a fantasy of instant transformation, I do believe the earth provides us with these types of “support beams” to help us maintain our balance. But even a support beam has to be placed correctly to be useful. There is a persistent myth that because something is mineral-rich, it must be completely harmless, and that’s the exact point where herbalism can become sloppy. Truly skilled care requires us to move past the simple labels and understand the edge of the tool we are holding.

The “mineral-rich and harmless” myth

We often hear horsetail described as “mineral-rich and harmless,” as if those words mean you can use it indefinitely without a second thought. In reality, herbs have contexts and consequences just like anything else, and part of being a good steward of your own health is knowing which plants are everyday food and which are situational tools. Horsetail isn’t something to treat casually, especially if you’re dealing with certain health conditions or looking for long-term daily internal use.

The mainstream summaries typically flag the same core cautions: horsetail isn’t ideal for prolonged internal use, and it should be avoided by anyone with kidney concerns, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, or people with a history of B1 (thiamine) deficiency. Verywell Health emphasizes that horsetail contains thiaminase, an enzyme that can break down vitamin B1 over time, and notes there isn’t one universally “right” dose that fits every person (Verywell Health). Healthline makes similar points, highlighting that it might also interact with certain medications and could potentially lower blood sugar or potassium levels to an unsafe degree (Healthline).

None of this is meant to be a deterrent; it’s simply the mature version of herbalism. It means that while I value the minerals horsetail offers, I treat it as a targeted ally for specific seasons of life. Respecting the terrain of your body is just as important as respecting the beauty of the plants growing behind your house.

Functional medicine for real life

If you’re living with a focus on self-sufficiency, you already understand that a remedy is only useful if it’s applied at the right time. Horsetail earns its place for me most clearly during the “repair and rebuild” phases of life. I think of it on those weeks when your body is tired from real work—the digging, hauling, and carrying that makes your tendons feel like old ropes and your joints talk back to you. In those moments, the body needs steady support: restorative food, hydration that actually hydrates, and gentle plant allies that help your tissues recover instead of trying to force them through on grit alone.

I also appreciate horsetail as an external wash or rinse, which tends to carry a much wider safety margin than internal protocols. This is the order of operations I swear by: clean the issue first, stabilize what needs stabilizing, and then bring in your herbal support care. Keeping that sequence straight is one of the most loving things you can do for your family, because it ensures you aren’t “naturally” delaying a situation that actually requires a more urgent medical response.

If someone is dealing with an emergency—heavy bleeding, breathing trouble, signs of shock, or a serious burn—the priorities are not poetic. You get effective first, and you let the herbs come in during the aftercare phase. Being prepared means knowing when to reach for a bandage and when to reach for a jar, and never confusing the two.

When horsetail is appropriate (and when it isn’t)

The simplest rule I follow is that horsetail is appropriate when it’s used as support, and it’s inappropriate when it’s used as a substitute for urgency. It makes sense when you are in a deliberate season of rebuilding or when you want a grounded, mineral-heavy rinse as part of your personal care routine. It’s also an excellent plant for practicing your identification and preservation skills, helping you turn the landscape into a familiar apothecary that you know how to navigate with confidence.

However, I would never reach for it when someone is dehydrated or struggling to keep fluids down. Because horsetail is often discussed as a diuretic, using it in a dehydration scenario is a fast way to create a new problem while you’re trying to solve the old one. Similarly, if someone has pre-existing kidney issues or is on medications that affect fluid balance, this isn’t the herb to experiment with. True preparedness is about minimizing risk, not adding to it.

Foraging comes with its own set of rules, too. You have to be careful with where you harvest, as creek banks can easily become contaminated by agricultural runoff or road salts. Horsetail is also a genus with many species; while the common field horsetail is what we’re usually after, some of its relatives are truly unsafe for internal use. Dr. Axe points out that marsh horsetail (Equisetum palustre) is known to be poisonous, which is a stark reminder that self-reliance isn’t about guessing; it’s about doing the work of certain identification.

Drying it for later uses

I’m currently focused on the unglamorous work of drying my recent harvest. This is where preparedness stops being an idea and becomes a skill you actually own. I lay the plants out with plenty of airflow, far away from direct sun, and I give them enough space so they don’t mat or hold moisture. Once they’re crisp and snappy, they go into glass jars that I label with the name and the date, because “I think this is from last summer” is a dangerous sentence to be saying when you’re under stress and trying to make a quick decision.

This is also when I stay most critical of my harvest. If I suspect the water source was questionable or the stand looked stressed, I don’t use it. The land is always telling the truth about what it’s carrying, and our job is to be quiet enough to listen to the whole story. Collecting herbs is a way of building a set of options for yourself so that when life gets messy, you aren’t entirely at the mercy of a supply chain or a store shelf.

[Image: Horsetail laid out to dry on screens, labeled jars waiting nearby]

A quiet kind of confidence

There is a shift that happens in your nervous system when you start recognizing the plants in your own backyard as functional medicine. You stop feeling like your well-being is something you have to buy, and you realize it’s something you can tend. It doesn’t make you invincible, but it does make you engaged.

Horsetail is a perfect reminder of that process—it’s medicine in plain sight, offered without a price tag, provided you take the time to learn its language. If you’ve been noticing it popping up along your own creek banks or fence rows lately, I’d love to hear about it. There’s something grounding about knowing we’re all looking at the same landscape and finding different ways to listen.

Come deeper with me (Paid Subscribers)

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You’ll also get access to my gardening plan and journal PDF, one-on-one consultations to optimize your growing space, and entry into our private community. Paid subscriptions are $10/month or $100/year via Substack, and they help me keep this work rooted and reachable for everyone.

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Notes

I looked back at these while putting this together to make sure I was staying grounded in the common safety rules: Dr. Axe, Verywell Health, Healthline.

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