The best books on practical herbalism and foraging

Why are we passionate about this?

As writers, we believe that if you have something wonderful to say it needs a beautiful book to say it in. In writing six books together, in the area of herbal medicine and foraging, we have been lucky to find publishers who share our beliefs. How it works is that Julie is our qualified herbalist and a photographer, layout, and typesetting specialist, while Matthew is a professional editor, writer, and compulsive compiler of bibliographies and indexes. Our USP is that we insist each plant deserves a recipe or two, and that we feature many forgotten wild plants from the old herbals that we love to bring back to life.


We wrote...

Backyard Medicine: Harvest and Make Your Own Herbal Remedies

By Julie Bruton-Seal, Matthew Seal,

Book cover of Backyard Medicine: Harvest and Make Your Own Herbal Remedies

What is our book about?

This is a practical book that explains how to identify 50 commonly occurring medicinal plants and weeds, and then how to make useful herbal medicines from them. Each chapter includes Julie’s original photographs of the plants and medicines, distinguishing features and distributions of the plants, advice on how and when to harvest or forage them, step-by-step recipes, bullet points of medicinal benefits, and any necessary cautions about using the plants.

This book offers medicine for free, with the additional boon of preparing it yourself and knowing exactly what goes into the tea, tincture, or oxymel. Using this book helps value dandelion, dock, nettle, willow, yarrow, and many other common plants in a new light.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival

Matthew and Julie Why did I love this book?

We value this book because it is alone in giving equal weight to the foraging (for eating) and medicinal values (for health) of thirteen super-abundant survival plants.

We love its breezy but informed tone, its original recipes, and its underlying serious ecological purpose. What we found somewhat irritating was the twee little verses that introduce each plant: these are groan-worthy! But that’s the only and slight criticism, and we love to follow Katrina for fun and very well-informed foraging!

By Katrina Blair,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wild Wisdom of Weeds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Wild Wisdom of Weeds is the only book on foraging and edible weeds to focus on the thirteen weeds found all over the world, each of which represents a complete food source and extensive medical pharmacy and first-aid kit. More than just a field guide to wild edibles, it is a global plan for human survival.

When Katrina Blair was eleven she had a life-changing experience where wild plants spoke to her, beckoning her to become a champion of their cause. Since then she has spent months on end taking walkabouts in the wild, eating nothing but what she…


Book cover of Wild Food

Matthew and Julie Why did I love this book?

This book is our go-to reference for any new wild food plant and still our favourite food foraging book of all, even though it’s over 40 years old. It has the best photographs (often of the author’s amazingly set-up food shots), the biggest range of worldwide edible wild plant foods (including mushrooms and seaweed), and the most informed, comprehensive text.

It is the book all foragers aspire to have written and we are very grateful to Roger for having done it so well already!

By Roger Phillips, Jacqui Hurst (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wild Food as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Earthwise Herbal, Volume II: A Complete Guide to New World Medicinal Plants

Matthew and Julie Why did I love this book?

We think this is Matthew’s masterwork, forming the most thorough and sensitive contemporary herbal in English. When we say ‘sensitive’ we are referencing Matthew’s intuitive understanding of a herb’s specific qualities, or virtues.

He combines this feeling for a plant’s individuality with a thorough knowledge of the way it has been favoured in traditional herbal medicine and how he has used it himself, quoting from cases arising in his long clinical experience. A proponent of ‘drop dosing’ or using the least amount of herb necessary, he is often surprising, sometimes controversial, but always well-informed and elegant in his work.

Book cover of Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern & Central North America

Matthew and Julie Why did I love this book?

We admire this new book by the acknowledged expert on North American edible plants. Sam Thayer’s astonishing field guide is handy in size, a laminated paperback with lovely rounded corners, full of beautiful illustrations and maps, covering most of eastern North America and including over 700 edible plant species.

It is superb on botanical, medicinal and culinary dimensions, and is also fun. How can you resist an author who offers both a ‘regular old boring index’ and ‘the best index (in the author’s opinion)’, which lists, for example, the best herbs to make teas, string or wild spices, the best-kept foraging secrets and the best things to avoid feeding a first date?

By Samuel Thayer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern & Central North America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Eastern North America is one of the richest foraging landscapes in the world, with a wild abundance of fruits, berries, nuts, roots, tubers, shoots, flowers, seeds, and leafy greens. This guide is the key to unlocking the nutritional and culinary secrets of the natural bounty around us. As the most comprehensive regional guide ever written, it contains detailed descriptions, range maps, and sharp color photos of 675 edible species as well as some of our most troublesome toxic plants. Sam Thayer's Field Guide pioneers a novel identification system using everyday language accessible to beginning and advanced foragers alike, designed to…


Book cover of Stalking The Wild Asparagus

Matthew and Julie Why did I love this book?

We love Euell Gibbons, the man and book that began it all a lifetime ago! Stalking the Wild Asparagus spurred the rise of foraging and ecological awareness in sixties America, and remains relevant today.

The book is folksy, personal, and inspirational but also remains scientifically accurate, and as a born teacher Euell is careful to define the limits of which foods you can gather and safely eat. It’s a miracle it was published, and we should be immensely grateful to David Mackay Co. of New York for going for it back in 1962–and giving themselves a bestseller.

By Euell Gibbons,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stalking The Wild Asparagus as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nearly sixty years ago an unknown writer named Euell Gibbons (1911-1975) presented a book on gathering wild foods to the New York publisher David McKay Co. Together they settled on the title, Stalking the Wild Asparagus. No one expected that this iconic title would become part of the American language, nor did they anticipate the revival of interest in natural food and in environmental preservation in which this book played a major role. Euell Gibbons became an unlikely celebrity and made many television appearances. Stalking the Wild Asparagus has sold the better part of half a million copies since the…


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A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

Book cover of A Diary in the Age of Water

Nina Munteanu Author Of Darwin's Paradox

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Writer Ecologist Mother Teacher Explorer

Nina's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity.

Single mother and limnologist Lynna witnesses disturbing events as she works for the powerful international utility CanadaCorp. Fearing for the welfare of her rebellious teenage daughter, Lynna sets in motion a series of events that tumble out of her control with calamitous consequence. The novel explores identity, relationship, and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.

A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

What is this book about?

Centuries from now, in a post-climate change dying boreal forest of what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, discovers a diary that may provide her with the answers to her yearning for Earth’s past—to the Age of Water, when the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity in hatred—events that have plagued her nightly in dreams. Looking for answers to this holocaust—and disturbed by her macabre longing for connection to the Water Twins—Kyo is led to the diary of a limnologist from the time just prior to the destruction. This gritty memoir describes a…


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