Foraging Level 1: Ethics of Foraging and Elderberry Propagation

Foraging has become a rather popular topic and activity lately. It brings us great joy to know that more people are spending time outdoors, interacting with nature, perhaps even teaching their kids where our food and medicine comes from. The process of identification, harvest, and preparation of wild edibles and medicinals brings us closer to our immediate ecosystem and strengthens our sense of food security and wellness.

But it is a practice ripe for abuse. Lack of education and destructive, overzealous behavior can be potentially dangerous to the individual and devastating to the environment. However, keeping just a few things in mind and following some best practices, foraging can be a fun and rewarding experience without harming the environment or one’s self.

*Snow date scheduled for February 25th

About the Instructors:

Lacey Walker is an educator whose passion for herbs led to becoming Fox Haven’s herb farmer, herbalist, forager, and plant educator. While teaching English to non-native speakers in DC, Lacey began facilitating peer to peer learning, a style of group learning. As Director of the Learning Center Farm, she created the Fresh Herbal CSA in 2017 and established Fox Haven’s Herbal Internship Program in 2018. A lifelong learner, Lacey studies with noted experts and has completed two years of apprenticeship at the Wild Ginger Herbal Center (formerly Centro Ashe), as well as two study trips to Costa Rica and training on the body, with Tammi Sweet of Heartstone Herbal School. In 2017, she completed coursework on fermentation with Sandor Katz in Tennessee, and in 2019, completed an apprenticeship with Susquehanna Apothecary, where she honed medicine making skills.

Taylor Roman grew up in Frederick, where his years exploring the woodlands around Lake Linganore established a lifelong passion for understanding nature and its complex systems. He studied environmental education and ecology in college, while working with community organizations in Baltimore to create and sustain gardens and green spaces in the city. He has worked throughout Maryland as a farmer, gardener, master naturalist, and environmental educator for the last 8 years, gaining diverse skills, from mechanical repair to beekeeping. Taylor’s passion for nature education is centered around experiential learning and he is passionate about Fox Haven as a place where people can connect to the natural world through direct, intimate experiences.

Continuing in 2023, Fox Haven will pay $2 from every ticket sale to the Piscataway Land Trust as a LandBack tax for the land Fox Haven inhabits. Land taxes to indigenous nations function similarly to paying rent or a home mortgage. Payments such as a mortgage provide access to living space, whereas LandBack taxes recognize our access to stolen Indigenous land.

The Piscataway Land Trust is a long-term Indigenous-led effort led by the 501(c)(3) Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians Inc. to restore and rematriate ancestral land and sovereignty in the Chesapeake region to Piscataway and other Chesapeake Indigenous people. To learn more or pay land tax, visit: https://www.piscatawayindians.com/projects