Introducing: Wildcrafting

July 9th, 2009

When I’m not gardening I’m running websites and I have a new one I want to tell you about. It isn’t strictly about gardening, it is more about living off the land, but topically those two things are very close, and I think many of you will be interested in this.

Wildcrafting.net is an advanced mashup of plant data and Google Maps which allows you to find or plot exact locations where a plant grows. If there is a wild elderberry bush growing on the side of the road, you can plot it, then come midsummer when the berries are ripe, you can visit the site and see all the local elderberry locations, thus allowing you to drive around and pick loads of elderberries.

Of course there are hundreds of plants, elderberries aren’t the only option, but the overall goal of the site is to make it easier for people to go out and find free food growing in nature by marking the locations where wild edibles grow on public lands. There is also an option to keep your marks private, allowing you to use the site as a diary or library of your own known locations, if you don’t want people to know about them.

Right now the site is brand new, there aren’t many plant locations plotted yet, hopefully that will change, so that eventually with enough user participation the maps will just be full of plotted locations. Allowing anyone to pull up the site, type in their address, and see what free food grows near their house.

This site was built as an extension of the Wilderness Survival Forums, so to participate you must first register there. Then you can add marks, add pictures, comment on marks or plants or pictures, rate things, add new plants, and more, all for free.

So go ahead, check it out. Wildcrafting.net Wild Edibles.

Posted in: Gardening » 

5 Responses to “Introducing: Wildcrafting”

  1. britta turner  Says:
    July 9th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    hey this is great that you’re trying to network and encourage people to forage free fruit! please check out forageoakland.blogspot.com and my personal website. we’re doing the same things in North and South California and would like to connect with more and more people and hopefully make some sort of organization out of it! let’s be in touch! happy harvesting 🙂

  2. Joe  Says:
    July 10th, 2009 at 11:09 am

    Was this programmed by you? , you have some good programming skills. I spent a good amount of time their about an hour, before I knew it.

  3. Gil  Says:
    August 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am

    I think the wildcrafting concept is fantastic. I would love to know of a place locally where I can take my family to pick our own berries. It reminds me of the good ‘ol days of picking blackberries with my grandma. underashadytree.com

  4. Anna  Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    That’s an extreme use of technology for garden purposes, but here’s another one. How about using a GPS? You’ve heard of geocaching? Well this is something you might want to do when in the woods and you find that lady slipper orchid and want to see if it’s there again, jot it into your notebook, put in a pic, the co-ordinates etc.

  5. Molly  Says:
    February 1st, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    Hey, I recognize the Northern Tier Trail! Cool. I’ll have to check it out.

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