Spring is in Bloom

Find connection with the land and feed your family locally, seasonally, and sustainably

Nourish your family from nature's pantry. Foraging as a Way of Life documents twelve months of wildcrafting, featuring five different plants each month for a full year of abundant, local, and seasonal eating. Enhance your sense of self-sufficiency while increasing food security, protecting habitat, and connecting with the land.

Full-color and lavishly illustrated, this accessible, in-depth resource features:

• Accurate and detailed descriptions of herbs, mushrooms, berries, and other wild plants to avoid confusion and inspire confidence when determining plant identification.
• Foraging recipes for remedies, tonics, syrups, and unique handcrafted dishes incorporating wild ingredients—feast on rosehip soup with pan-fried dandelion flowers, followed by birch- bark cookies or chicory chocolate bars.
• Extensive guidance for safe processing or consumption of each species, including cautions, lookalikes, and tips for sustainable harvesting.

Drawing on the author's field experience and her study of herbalism and ethnobotany, Foraging as a Way of Life is designed to inspire readers to share the exuberance and joy of wild foods while finding nourishment and connection in their local fields or forests. A must for every gardener who would like to gather dinner while weeding, for those wishing to learn sustainable harvesting while hiking, or for anyone who wants to create healthy, foraged meals while living lightly on the planet.

Create stunning crochet collages with this collection of 100 patterns for crochet flowers, plants and petals. Crochet designer and gardener, Chris Norrington, has created 100 crochet motifs arranged in 10 collages based on the beautiful flowers and plants found in her wonderful cottage garden on the edge of the beautiful North York Moors National Park.

All of the motifs are inspired in some way by Chris' garden and the collages roughly follow the pattern of the seasons from the first flowers in spring, through to the frosty leaves of winter.

The motif designs are inspired by the colours and shapes found in nature and, while some are recognisable as specific plant species, they are not intended to be botanically accurate representations of particular plants.

Alongside the more usual front-on view of flowers in full bloom, Chris has included some patterns for flowers viewed from the side, half-opened flowers, buds, seedheads, berries and fungi. There is also a large variety of foliage types from individual leaves to leafy stems, ferns and grasses.

Each of the collages has a different, sometimes seasonal, theme and all of the compositions are different - there are wreaths and bouquets, some are arranged in a jug or a vase while others grow straight from the ground.

The collage themes include Woodland Glade, inspired by a sun-dappled, shady forest corner with ferns and snowdrops, the Vintage Blue Bouquet collage is inspired by the shapes and soft pastel colours of Lily-of-the-valley and Scabious, and the Flower Meadow collage evokes a prairie-style meadow with ornamental grasses interspersed with tall perennial flowers.

You can have fun recreating the collages that Chris has designed or you can mix and match the motifs of your favourite plants and flowers to make your own creations. There are instructions for which yarn to use to create the motifs but you can experiment with different types of yarn to create your own versions.

As well as creating the beautiful crochet collages which could be mounted and framed, there are ideas for what to make from the crocheted motifs including decorative applique embellishments on clothes and homewares, as well as bookmarks and keyring charms.