Foundational Classes
Intro to Foraging & Tender Greens
The first few minutes will help you hone safety skills that are crucial to the success of any foraging. This is an identification-foused class where we will relate what you see to common grocery store items through sight, smell or taste. We encourage you to take the same class at multiple locations or different times of the year to improve retention & to provide a high personal success rate!
Intro to Foraging & Superfoods
The first few minutes will help you hone safety skills that are crucial to the success of any foraging. This class will relate what you see to common grocery store items through sight, smell or taste, and we’ll briefly discuss nutritional benefits and history of the plants we see along with simple cooking ideas. We encourage you to take the same class at multiple locations or different times of the year to improve retention & to provide high success rates!
Intro to Urban Foraging
This popular concept is a great way to appreciate nature in all its settings. Safety will be a large focus of this class in order to ensure students are prepared for the unique situation of urban foraging. You’ll be surprised what seasonal edibles you can find in the most unexpected places. The perfect accompaniment to any other foraging class!
Plant Kingdom
Broccoli Relatives
Broccoli and mustard, along with radish and arugula, all come from the same family. We’ll use some key ID features to discover several wild members of this delicious family of plants. By understanding the growing patterns of this family, you’ll be able to discover patches of your own favorite vegetables, greens, spices & roots.
More than Mint
Did you know that lavender and oregano are part of the mint family? This highly dispersive, aromatic, and native family has key characteristics that make it a crowd & kitchen favorite. This class changes a bit each season, depending on what is available, and we guarantee you’ll enjoy the scratch and sniff theme!
Intro to Foraging w/ Berries & Roses
Did you know that every part of a blackberry bush is technically edible? Learning about this popular berry and tea-making family, the rosacaceae family, will give you the best opportunity to pick fresh, ripe berries or prime, sweet flowers by learning about their growing seasons, habits and their key ID features. We’ll teach you how to tend a wild patch of brambles, and how to get a good, wild harvest! Your forest edges will become a bevy of the sweetest foraging hauls of raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries & roses after taking this ID class.
Foraged Tea: Sips & Sourcing
Try before you “buy” in this class where we will start by taste-testing a few herbal blends while learning a little about our local tea history. Once we’ve explored base flavors of making native black and green “teas”, we will gather a sample of tea-making blends from the site and learn how to process them into your own teas using simple techniques and tools. Each host site will have their own variety of flavors from lemon bee-balm & sweet goldenrod to native mints & calming herbs.
We will supply collection bags, disposal of canes or other byproducts, fresh tea to sample, and drinking containers. You must bring thick gloves and clippers or scissors for your collection. We will have some supplies you can “rent out” if needed. Collection items will be seasonal, based on host site preferences, & dependant on what Mother Nature provides.
Native Spices: Spicebush & More
Spices have never been just about flavor. They are the original medicine of indigenous people, and they are growing all around us. Come learn about alternatives for oregano, cinnamon, lemons and more in this scratch and sniff class. Terra Farms & Field will have several teaching gardens specifically for this class. Each season will offer different plants, and we will be collecting samples for you to take home and try. We encourage students to bring scissors, collection bags, and long sleeves!
Flower Food
Flowers are not always sweet. Sometimes they’re spicy. Sometimes they’re bitter. Just because someone put a beautiful flower on a cookie doesn’t mean the cookie tastes good! Learn about a handful of seasonal flowers, and some delicious ways to integrate them into your cooking. Terra Farms & Field will have several teaching gardens specifically for this class.
Fungi Kingdom
Fungi ID
This is not your normal “text book” class. Be prepared to get hands on with various fungi, dried & fresh, as you search for identifying clues and learn terminology with an expert. This is a class that will involve all of your senses! Available for your use during class are clipboards, specimens of 5 popular dried fungi, and fresh sensory materials, but you will need to bring your own chair. We highly recommend taking notes in a designated “fungi notebook”.
Fungi Families & Mini-Hunt
Field guides for fungi can be overwhelming. This important foundational class is designed to help students at all levels understand families of mushrooms with the help of an expert mushroomer. You will need to bring your own chair for the first portion of class, but we will provide clipboards to write on. You’ll also take an interactive walk utilizing your knowledge of fungi to guess where they might be growing! We highly recommend taking notes in a designated “fungi notebook”. Note: This is not a collection class.
Trees for Mushroomers
The saying is “the dose makes the poison”, but sometimes, in the case of fungi, it’s the tree. A fungi can be edible or not depending on what tree it’s growing on, and several fungi are known for their close association with preferred trees. This class will introduce you to tree identification based on bark, shape and location in order to be better equipped for serious fungi hunting. We will provide supplies for bark rubbings, and we highly recommend taking notes in a designated “fungi notebook”.
Fungi Cooking Basics
Mushrooms are not all cooked the same! Perfect for adventurous chefs and curious minds, this class will start with understanding the basic cooking differences between high and low water content mushrooms, why some cook times are not an option, and general cooking tips for commonly found purchased mushrooms. We’ll do a short overview of some of the more common wild mushrooms, and the cooking techniques that will highlight their wild flavors. We encourage students to take notes to create a “mushroom cookbook” that can be expanded through speciality cooking demos and guest guides.