The Wild Things Course is an eight month exploration of wild food and medicine growing in a variety of habitats in and around Edinburgh through the seasons. It includes opportunities to gain confidence in low impact foraging, beginners botany and ecology, and to develop a sensory approach to using wild plants both as food and medicine.
There will be a combination of theoretical sessions, practical remedy making and outings into some of Edinburgh’s most beautiful wild areas.

Increasingly today our food and medicine is flown to us from far regions of the globe. Health food shops are stocked with ‘superfoods’ from rare and diminishing habitats, and we are commonly offered endangered species like Arnica & Echinacea. We have lost our connection to our local bioregion, and with it all of the history and traditions that our landscape and the plants that grow there can offer us. This course is about re-connection& about building sustainable, healthful practices through a deepening relationship with our local ecosystems.

The Course uses participatory learning methods & an action learning approach. Its learning outcomes for participants are to:

- Develop an understanding of the ethics and practice of ecological harvesting and gain a confidence in low impact foraging
- Try out recipes and learn practical remedy making skills for home use
- Learn about the edible and medicinal properties of some of our common British
plants and when to harvest them
- Develop a sensory approach to herbal medicine
- Beginners botany and ecology and the ability to confidently identify common
species
- Gain an understanding of how to live more harmoniously with the seasons
- Visit distinct habitats around Edinburgh and see how the plant communities
that live within them change over the year