foraging & plant walks
Awaken to the edible and medicinal plant friends growing all around you!
Experience a sense of joy, wonder, connection, and empowerment as the “green wall” is demystified and the plants and trees you see every day come alive with their names, stories, smells, tastes, and gifts.
In these precarious times, foraging skills can also contribute towards resilient local food and healthcare systems, where everyone is fed and cared for.
DELIGHTS & SKILLS THAT AWAIT YOU ON A WALK:
🌱 learn plant and tree ID in a fun and memorable way
🌱 explore safe & sustainable foraging practices
🌱 create and taste delicious & nutritious wild food & beverages
🌱 discover medicinal uses of plants in your backyard
🌱 enjoy companionship with curious and passionate plant people
🌱 reconnect with the beauty, healing, and generosity of our loving earth
🌱 settle your nervous system and uplift your spirit
The best and safest way to learn to forage is in-person from knowledgeable people, the way plant relationships have been passed down through human history. Affectionately known as “Planty” Kim, I have been sharing my love and knowledge of the plant world with curious beginners and seasoned plant lovers going on two decades.
DETAILS BELOW ABOUT THE TWO WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME & PLANTY FRIENDS:
🌱MONTHLY PUBLIC WALKS &
🌱CUSTOM PLANT WALKS
Monthly Foraging Walks
My popular monthly foraging walks celebrate the abundant edible and medicinal friends of the season (spring greens, summer flowers and fruit, fall nuts, and winter trees). Typically 3.5 hours in length, our small group leisurely rambles through fields, ‘yardens’, and woods meeting new plant friends, learning sustainable foraging skills, and sampling wild treats. You’ll go home inspired to weave wild food and medicine into your daily life with gratitude and reciprocity.
Group size is limited and walks fill up! Ages 12 and up. Participants need to be able to walk and stand on uneven surfaces for several hours. We meet rain or shine. Sliding scale and partial scholarship support available.
Custom Plant Walks
Let’s meet some of the abundant medicinal and edible plant friends growing wild all around you. I guide personalized plant walks for individuals, families, friends, schools, non-profits, and businesses, ranging from 2 hours to longer learning journeys. I can come to you or you can come to me. We’ll practice safe and sustainable ID and enjoy a wild food or beverage together. Wheelchair accessible or limited mobility plant explorations are available.
There are different plants and trees to identify and harvest throughout the year (including winter)! Ask about a discounted bundle of walks where we schedule an exploration during different seasons to learn as much as possible.
RATES: for a 2-hour ramble: for small personal groups (up to 6 people), prices start at $300, and for larger institutions (up to 12 people attending), pricing starts at $800. I’m doing my best to meet the needs of non-profits, community and school groups; please ask about rates. For other questions about times, fees, and more, please contact me directly.
PAST CLIENTS/COLLABORATORS INCLUDE: Guilford College, Triangle Land Conservation, Carolina Friends School, UNC Botanical Garden, Communities in Schools Chatham County, Clapping Hands Farm Camp, Carrington Middle School, Anathoth Community Garden’s Manos Abiertos Youth Program, Haw River Assembly, Deep River Folk School, Woods Charter School, Chatham County Community College, Meredith College, NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference, Galloway Ridge, Shakori Hills Grassroots Music & Dance Festival, and more!
Beloved Grandma Margie whose mom Bessie raised her and her 14 siblings using folk medicine
why foraging is important to me/all of us
I believe foraging is a powerful reminder that there is enough for us all when we share the Earth’s gifts equitably.
Growing up in a working class family, we often struggled to meet our basic needs, including food. And, from an early age, I also learned that our wild plant friends have a lot to teach and offer us: digging up sassafras roots to make nourishing teas with my great-grandma Rena Midgett on the Outer Banks; rambling the woods and fields near Pokeberry Creek with Grandma Margie, who'd show me plants to nibble, and Granddaddy DA, who quizzed me on tree ID and shared wisdom from life on the family farm.
In my 20s I devoted myself to deep learning with the plants (see teachers here). As I learned that the majority of our local wild plant friends have edible and/or medicinal gifts, the scarcity I experienced as a child gave way to a new sense of trust and power — a deep knowing that the Earth loves us, that our truest needs can be met by the abundance surrounding us. The wild greens, fruit, nuts, roots, pollen, and flowers from hundreds of species growing freely around me made that real.
We humans have evolved with the plants and our lives are completely interdependent. Wherever our ancestors originated on this astounding earth, they had deep, loving relationships with the land. These relationships — with the earth, seasons, plant traditions, and culture — have been strategically and violently severed through domination/industrialization/empire/colonization/capitalism. Yet a majority of the planet's peoples still use herbal remedies as their primary medicine, and many U.S. Americans were connected to this plant wisdom just a few generations ago. In my own family, my great-grandmother Bessie Farmer raised and healed her 15 children using folk medicine she learned from her family, which included Native, Black, and European people, supported by other working class folks in her rural eastern NC community.
It is my great joy to support my community in remembering our relationships with these plant relatives and reconnecting to our miraculous earth and each other in mutual respect and care.
Grandma Margie and Greatgrandma Bessie at a family reunion in Nash County circa 1980s. Bessie would exclaim, “Come get your goodiments,” when sharing plant medicine with her 15 children.
my teaching experience
(see my teachers here )
kicked off my DIY plant medicine workshops back in 2008 with Abundance NC at The Plant
taught quarterly plant and tree field classes at Central Carolina Community College from 2011-2016
co-led a biannual Wild Walkabout with my friend Leif Diamant at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Music & Dance Festival from 2009 – 2013
taught tree classes at the UNC Botanical Garden 2013 - 2014
facilitated custom walks for many college classes, organizations, and staff, including: UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, Guilford College, Meredith College, and Western Carolina University
guided walks for Cullowhee Native Plants Conference 2025 & 2026
check out more collaborations in custom walks description above :-)
Young Kim with friend and teacher Frank Cook on a plant walk at the Southeast Permaculture Gathering circa 2007
planty kim-created
foraging resources
Let’s be good stewards and build healthy relationships with these Safe and Sustainable Foraging Guidelines
Blending a batch of wild greens pesto: rare video of me :-)
Planty Kim’s Famous Wild Greens Pesto Recipewith year-round wild greens
Foraging for Wild Greens in Your Yarden (my article in the North Carolina Botanical Garden’s magazine)
I Love Chickweed (my article in the Chatham County Line)
See recommended foraging and herbalism books, links, teachers on my Resource Page
testimonials
🌱 “Hey Kim! I am incredibly grateful for the time we all got to spend together. Your energy is radiant and nourishing. The education you shared was something that I have been yearning for but what I appreciated most went beyond plant ID. I greatly valued your recognition and respect for your own ancestors as well as those Indigenous to the land around us. Everything was so so amazing, from your respectful handout, the persimmon soda (bubbly magic), the twig ID, the side by side tree comparisons”…read more
🌱 “This morning I went running and on my path I saw smilex, autumn olive, wild grape leaves, wild lettuce, some kind of dock, cleaver, oxalis, most of which before yesterday would have been nameless “weeds.” Your classes make my daily life feel bigger. It’s like I can finally SEE. Thank you for that. Looking forward to future rambles”. ~April
🌱 “Time outside with you and the plants is just medicine for my soul”! ~Lisa
🌱 See here for more kind words and praise