For the Birds

Have you ever grown anything specifically with wild birds in mind? Many people plant things like thistle, cone flower, rose and various berries specifically to invite their feathered friends to grab a snack as they’re passing through. Even if you’re not a bird watcher (or “birder”) it is definitely nice to have the flit of [...]

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Wild Food is the Original Real Food

“People simply fall in love with wild foods. Lord knows these wild things swept me away. Folks want to be seduced by their mystery, their freedom from the bonds of agriculture. Our human civilization, based on agriculture, has struggled for millennia to no longer depend on foraging in the wild. But here at the start [...]

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Quick Herbal Bug Bite Salve

Several years ago I read about the wonders of Broad Leaved Plantain, a “weed” that grows everywhere. It’s also known as: Bird’s Meat, Common Plantain, Great Plantain, Rat-tail Plantain, White Man’s Foot. I have it growing all over the gardens here at Chiot’s Run and I’m quite happy about it. It comes in very handy [...]

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Winemaking and Jelly: Possum Grapes

And just like that Elderberry season is gone! It’s time to move onward in our winemaking extravaganza, for it’s now the season for Possum Grapes. These tiny, buckshot-sized, purple grapes are mostly seed. They grow wild and can engulf entire trees in a season. Most people will cut them back before they have the chance [...]

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Winemaking and Jam: Elderberry

Now that blackberries are done for most of us, Elderberries are the next wild fruit in season. I can’t just sit by and watch good food go to waste, so of course I must climb through the remaining rose and blackberry brambles to reach the tiny purple fruits of the Elderberry. Poke berries are also [...]

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Neighborhood ‘Weed’ Wars, the Manicured Lawn Invasion

We live on 10 acres, mostly pasture with a small stand of evergreens and lined at the edges with wild blackberries.  Our property is a perfect square, with our house smack dab in the middle.  To the north of our farm is a small family run dairy farm.  To the south is my mom’s acrage  [...]

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Wild Edibles

Compared to the start of our Real Food Challenge, getting local food is a breeze this time of year. How much more local can you get than your own backyard? Spring is good for items like ramps and morels. Summer in our region has quite a few beauties to look out for. If you don’t [...]

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Foraging for Wild Food

Here at Chiot’s Run, we love finding foods that we can forage from the wild without having to cultivate them. Each year we learn more and more about wild edible plants and we’re enjoying the nutritional benefits they add to our diet. It can be an overwhelming and scary thing to learn about wild foraged [...]

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Getting Ready for Sugaring Season

Last year was our first year sugaring our maple trees. We started late in the season and didn’t really know what we were doing, so we made a few mistakes. We learned a lot and are looking forward to putting that knowledge to use this year. I’m still reading a few books to refresh my [...]

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Blackberry Picking…

When you hear the word ‘blackberry’ many people now think of the handy dandy phone that does most anything… Well here in the Pacific Northwest we think of the monster vines that threaten to take over the western part of our lovely state of Washington. I affectionately call them the vines from hell… I hate [...]

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