Foraging guide & calendar for western washington

This Foraging Guide & Calendar for Western Washington is made up of a set of 12 double-sided monthly calendar cards, a small booklet with the basics of each wild edible included in the collection, and the case which is intended as a display for the calendar cards and can be hung up using a tab on the back. This project grew out of my own research into wild edibles in my home region of Puget Sound. Having explored the wild areas of the region throughout my whole life I knew some of the commonly foraged species, and knew enough to pick a berry or two as a snack along a hiking trail. However, I wanted to learn more. During my research I found a lot of the information on foraged species to be buried within information about species that shouldn’t be collected. This is important to know of course, but as a casual collector I just wanted to go after the easily recognizable and safely collectible items. I didn’t find many fun and easily approachable resources along those lines. I also found very few resources organizing such information by the time of harvest, even though that timing is important to identification in many ways.

This project was created to fill that gap I had found and make something that was organized in a linear fashion that I could easily digest, and that could be displayed. In total the project includes 28 wild edibles in the categories of greens, berries, marine species, and mushrooms. Each monthly card features the illustrations of species that can be harvested in that month, with just the images shown on the front and the images with the names shown on the back. The included booklet walks the reader through foraging etiquette and guidelines and gives brief details each species. I never intended for this project to be a comprehensive guide to foraging complete with every detail of a species or its context, I wanted it to be a point of inspiration to get people excited about foraging and get them interested in doing their own research. Engineering the packaging and working towards the goal of making a product with longevity was an important part of the process for me as well. I really wanted to make sure that the finished product would not just be something people used, but something people might find special and a bit whimsical. I hope that my foraging guide can get people inspired to get outside and explore the bounty of their Puget Sound back yards.

This piece was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Washington State Zine Contest