Know your plants. Be sure you have the right part of the right plant and have handled it properly. Some plants are edible only after cooking. And some have harmful look-alikes. Confirm with at least two sources and don’t taste anything you’re not sure about. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it won’t kill you. Says Young: “You can kill yourself quite naturally with natural things.”
Start small. Don’t eat a lot of any wild thing the first time you try it. Even if you know the plant is generally safe to eat, that doesn’t mean it will necessarily agree with you.
Be mindful of where you are gathering. Avoid harvesting from areas where there’s more grass than weeds and from spots near high-traffic roadways or large farms; they’re likely contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, road chemicals or car exhaust. Ask property owners for permission to harvest.
Don’t take it all. Always leave some for the animals. And, in poor growing years, leave it all. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer and other animals depend on wild plants.
Sources: Nebraska naturalists Pat Mettler, Konney Larwood, Rose Bernstein and Kay Young.
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