☼ Happy First Day of Fall! ☼ As the seasons change, so does the way we move through the landscape. Fall brings an inward shift — plants begin putting more of their energy into seeds, roots, fruits, and the soil below. It’s a beautiful time to slow down, pay attention, and think about what the landscape is offering us. It’s also a good time to revisit our wildcrafting practices. A few things to consider as we head into fall harvest season: Before harvesting a plant, get to know it and the community it belongs to. Where does it grow? How abundant is it? Who else is using it? Has it been harvested already? How has the population changed throughout the seasons? Ideally, spend some time observing a plant before you begin harvesting it. Learning to recognize the rhythms of a plant and its ecosystem is just as important as learning to identify the plant itself. When you do harvest, take only what you need and harvest from healthy, abundant populations. A common guideline is no more than 10% of a healthy population, but context matters — sometimes the most sustainable harvest is no harvest at all. Be absolutely certain of your identification, know which plant part you are harvesting, and consider where you are harvesting. Roadsides, railways, industrial areas, and contaminated soils are not good places to gather medicine. And remember that not everything we find is ours to take. Some plants and fungi are slow-growing, uncommon, or at risk. Learning about conservation status and local abundance is part of responsible wildcrafting. 𑁍 FALL HARVEST As plants begin to let go of their above-ground parts, fall gives us an opportunity to work with some different plant parts. ROOTS - Burdock — Arctium lappa - Yellow Dock — Rumex crispus - Dandelion — Taraxacum officinale SEEDS & FRUITS - Rosehips — Rosa spp. - Fennel — Foeniculum vulgare - Hawthorn — Crataegus spp. - Elderberry — Sambucus spp. - Horse Chestnut — Aesculus hippocastanum - Juniper — Juniperus communis

A little hyssop check-in. ᰍ We’re about halfway through the month, so here’s a little reminder to connect with our Herb of the Month. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. If you have some hyssop, make a tea or syrup. Look closely at the plant — the leaves, stems, flowers & how it grows. Smell it. Taste it. If you don’t have any hyssop, look up some photos or see what you can find in a book or at your local library. Then just see what comes up. I’m going to make myself a hyssop tea today & take some notes on the smell, taste & structure, but also how it feels in my body. Where do I notice it? What does it feel like? What surprises me? I also want to follow a few rabbit holes into the folklore & traditional uses of hyssop. This is really what I hope Herb Club can be — not just collecting facts about plants, but actually sitting with them. Paying attention. Honing that little bit of intuition that comes from experience. And then bringing what we find back here to share with each other. So if you’ve spent any time with hyssop so far, tell us what you’ve noticed! It can be one tiny thing. A question. Something weird you found. Something you liked. Something you’re still wondering about. All of it counts. ♡ A short video from the School of Evolutionary Herbalism: https://youtube.com/shorts/VNnbkRxHalE?si=GdBfra0gdiCt0R5b