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This time of the year always finds me out in the woods and fields searching for wild foods, herbs, and my favorites, wild berries.


red raspberries
rubus strigosis

black raspberries
rubus occidentalis  


wild strawberries
fragaria virginiana

Unfortunately, one of the hazards of foraging for wild foods is that the best and biggest fruits are always the hardest to get to and usually in the middle of a poison ivy patch or next to a few well-concealed stinging nettles plants – or both!

stinging nettles
urtica dioica

The feeling of a good, hard brush with stinging nettles is akin to a jellyfish sting – OUCH! It can keep stinging even several hours after contact, but when the plant is cooked, crushed or dried, the stinging is neutralized and it can be consumed. Its leaves are rich in iron, calcium, potassium, vitamins A, C, and D and it has various health benefits such as being good for the hair and skin, especially as a treatment for eczema as well as alopecia, arthritis, coughs, allergy symptoms, muscle spasms, parasitic infestation, gout, hemorrhoids, sciatica, diarrhea, and to aid nursing mothers in milk production.  

 
poison ivy, rhus toxicodendron, mimicking a wild strawberry plant

Luckily for me, another plant grows just as abundantly and nearby: my pal, jewel weed.  Jewel weed is the best natural cure for poison ivy. Its astringent properties dry the rash quickly and it also heals cuts, scrapes and burns.  The whole plant can be used right out of the ground as its stem is filled with juice that can be applied directly to the skin.  The leaves can be used as a poultice and it can be steeped and drunk as a tea as a poison ivy preventative.

jewel weed (spotted touch-me-not)
impatiens capensis    

Copyright 2008 Veronica Timpanelli - photos and story