Tom's Wild Plant Course

In this blog post, I’m asking for input from readers. I seek your thoughts on my proposed wild plant course, whether or not you think it a good idea and if it would appeal to you or people you know. Here’s how it would work.

I’d offer five sessions. The first would take place indoors and would be an introduction to the topic of foraging for wild plants. The next three classes would be field trips. The first of these would take place in early spring, perhaps May. It would center upon the mostly-ephemeral plants of that season that grow along streamsides (the alluvial plain) such as ostrich fern fiddleheads, the various dock species, wintercress, wild oats, false Solomon’s seal, groundnuts, orpine and others. The trip would also take in some woodland plants of the mottled shade, such as large-leaved aster, Clintonia, Partridge berries, violets, trillium, trout lily and others.

The next session, probably occurring some time in late June, would concentrate upon plants of the seashore. My workshop here would be Sears Island, a place with a wild abundance of useful and interesting wild plants.

The third field trip would cover summertime plants that show up on cultivated ground, such as the various “weeds” that we find in our gardens. This would probably happen in late July or early August.

The last session would take place either inside or perhaps at a park in the Midcoast area, weather permitting. Here, we would go over everything we had learned and observed during our trips and I would give participants a quiz to make sure that everyone had all the facts down to my satisfaction. We would have plenty of time for questions and answers and after that, I would hand out certificates of completion.

This scenario is subject to change, of course. Also, my wild plant school may not begin this May. As I said, I want to mine people for feedback and make sure there is sufficient interest before committing to anything.

However, it all sounds like a good idea to me and if enough people agree, then I’ll spend this coming season searching out sites for my field trips and fine-tuning my prospectus.

So please, give me your thoughts, either positive or negative. Contact me at (207) 338-9746, write me at Tom Seymour, 194 East Waldo Road, Waldo, ME 04915 or send an email message to: tomgseymour@gmail.com.