I have to say, I might skip straight to the articles this week. I'm really excited about one of them. I show you how to make my absolute favorite springtime treat. 

 

 

I love spring foraging. After a winter of cold and snow, it's incredible to see how much food is popping up everywhere. And it's nice to eat fresh, green plants while you're waiting for your garden to start producing. 

I'm a huge advocate for learning to forage, even if it's only a couple of specific plants. Once you learn how to identify a few plants, you'll be amazed at how often you see them when you're out and about. 

I was explaining this to my two young boys on Saturday. We were out on a hike, and I brought my foraging basket and gardening gloves with me. I had seen stinging nettle growing along the path earlier in the week and wanted to make fresh nettle soup.

I was pointing out all of the plants we were walking by that were edible or medicinal – garlic mustard, purple dead nettle, yarrow, violets, dandelions, stinging nettle, daylily shoots and even wild catnip—all of these growing within feet, sometimes mere inches, of each other. 
 

 

Yup. 

On our way back home, all of us munching on raw daylily shoots, my oldest son was pointing out all of the garlic mustard growing along the highway and the purple dead nettle growing in the empty cornfields. 
 

 

And while they weren't huge fans of the nettle soup (that's okay, there's more for me), they still appreciated the fact that dinner was provided by a wild patch in a field. 

 

 

Ah well, you can't win them all. 

And without further ado, my favorite (and one of the easiest) things to forage and make in the spring – Violet Syrup.