Blackwood is proud to offer the rare opportunity to take a foraging class with Dr. Mark Vorderbruggen, founder of the wildly popular foragingtexas.com blog and the Medicine Man Plant Co. plant medicine line. Together we will see what hidden forageable bounties exist around our 33-acre property, which encompasses three different biomes each possessing its own trove of native edible and medicinal flora. With Dr. Vorderbruggen as our guide in a small group setting, we’ll learn how to identify, harvest, and use the native Texas plants which surround us.

Details:

• Please note that the morning and afternoon sessions will cover different parts of the farm and hence different vegetation. Participants are welcome to do one or both sessions, however, the fee is the same per session.
• Lunch will be available from our Farm Stand between 12 PM and 1 PM.

This tour will involve lots of walking around our 33-acre property. Participants must wear closed-toed shoes and are encouraged to use sun protection and drink plenty of water.

Dr. Vorderbruggen started one of the top foraging sites on the internet in 2008, but he has been a forager all his life. Both his parents’ families used foraged foods to survive during the Great Depression, and they passed their knowledge on to him. Knowing how to harvest nature’s free food fed him through the poverty years of his childhood and while getting a master’s degree in medicinal chemistry and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry. For the last 18 years, he has worked as a research chemist in the oil industry, using his knowledge of natural products to develop environmentally friendly replacements for traditional oil field chemicals. However, his evenings and weekends are spent guiding people back to nature’s bounty, not only teaching them which plants are edible and/or medicinal, but also proselytizing how foraging heals the body, mind, and soul … and prepares them for the zombie apocalypse!