Some of the Island’s earliest spring wildflowers appear on their plants before the leaves. From the subtle blooms of Red Maple and Beaked...

My new book, Wild Foods of Prince Edward Island is coming out this spring and now available for pre-order. Published by The Acorn Press,...

Welcome back to Ask a Naturalist, your own personal Google for information on all things natural on PEI. Winter is great time to spot...

The Rose Family gives PEI so many beautiful and delicious plants: Apples, Blackberries, Chokeberries, Chokecherries, Raspberries,...

PEI’s autumn leaves are gone, but there are still bright splashes of colour in the landscape. One of my favourites is the tiny but...

Fall is a great time to collect some of PEI’s aromatic wild leaves, perfect for spicing up food and drink during the cold winter months....

PEI’s gardens and farm fields may be winding down for the year, but there’s still lots of fresh wild food in the landscape. It’s the...

In honour of Halloween, let’s look at something that can make PEI’s trees look decidedly eerie: Old Man’s Beard Lichens ( Usnea  spp.)...

If you’ve attended any of my wild plant workshops, you’ll have heard me say “don’t eat white berries”. While there is one edible, native,...

PEI’s landscape is full of wild fruits right now, but not all are edible. Let’s look at two of the species I’ve been getting a lot of...

When you hear the words ‘endangered species’, I’m betting animals like Piping Plover and Monarch Butterflies – or maybe Elephants and...

It’s been a great growing season on PEI, and our fall fruits are showing the result. Wild berries are everywhere right now, including the...

Humans think in decades, forests operate in centuries, but the land’s timeframe spans hundreds of millions of years.  We can read...

Fall and fresh food go hand in hand. PEI’s backyard gardens are full of vegetables, our farm fields are ready for harvest, and wild fruit...

Of PEI’s roughly 1,500 species of plants, only seven – less than one half of one percent – have no chlorophyll and can’t make food from...

PEI’s salt marshes are among our most under-appreciated habitats: they’re wet, smelly, buggy, and have few showy,...

The beautiful shades of green in PEI’s landscape are thanks to the 99.5% of our plants that photosynthesize – they make their own food...

No soap? No problem! This PEI plant has you covered. Meet Soapwort (aka Bouncing Bet, Saponaria officinalis ). I learn new things about...

I’ve been introducing you to members of the Carrot Family (Apiaceae) including the edible Wild Carrot (aka Queen Anne’s Lace, Daucus...

What’s not to like about early August on PEI?  There’s sandy beaches and warm water, new potatoes and garden vegetables, and wild fruit...