If you grew up around any type of greenery you probably spent your childhood making daisy chains, avoiding nettles and picking buttercups.
Summer days were full of picking blackberries from brambles.
As we got older these adventures outside get less and less. And unfortunately, we forget our roots, no pun intended.
But in recent years, people have become more mindful of where their food is coming from. We’ve seen herb gardens spring in windowsills and small vegetable plots pop up around gardens. And with so many incredible plants at our fingertips, the popularity of foraging has increased.
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We sat down with Green Witch, Feebee Foran to learn more about foraging. Feebee, has amassed an Instagram following of over 13,000 and appears on Ireland AM to chat all things nature, is as glam as one gets. In fact, she’s often out foraging in leopard print or purple dungarees.
Who says nature can’t be glam?
For Feebee, foraging is second nature, telling us: “I’ve always been a nature girl at heart. My dad was a great outdoorsman and my mam was very, very big into nature as well growing up.
“So it’s always kind of been in my nature and after my father passed away I retreated back to nature in grief. I found huge solace in the fact that, at a time when my world felt like it was upside down and everything was spinning out of control, that I could actually just put my faith in Mother Nature because she knew what was coming next.”
As for foraging, she says: “Foraging was a necessity for centuries. People would literally go to the ground for food and medicine. Irish people have a huge affinity for working with nature.”
For the third year, Feebee will be hosting a foraging class as part of Dublin City’s Brigit festival.
Speaking about getting involved with the festival, Feebee says: “Brigid is someone who has transcended and across, you know, religious barriers, like, adversity and diversity. She becomes someone that’s very, very approachable for everybody to be able to actually identify with some part of her.
“And so for me, I look at her as a goddess and as a forager, somebody who is nature mad. She’s the symbol of spring; she’s a symbol of the Earth giving birth to itself.”
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Of course, we couldn’t let Feebee go without her sharing her foraging tips. So here’s what advice she would give to newbie foragers…
Always wear gloves
Feebee suggests to have a foraging kit which includes good gloves as well as scissors.
You don’t want to get stung while you’re picking! She also adds that a good pair of pruners is important but you can always start with just your kitchen scissors.
Another part of your kit should be a field guide, Feebee recommends, The Wildflowers of Ireland: A Field Guide by Zoë Devlin.
Photoforage
Feebee says that everyone should start a photo album on their phones to keep all your photos of plants.
“Take photographs of things and then figure it out later. It’s great to have a curiosity and be like, ‘Oh, I’d love to know what that is’. That doesn’t mean you have to pick it.”
She goes on to say: “Photoforaging is one of my favourite things for people who are newbies because it means they can start. They can be curious, take pictures. And then either like use apps to help them with their identification. Or then use the likes of a field guide which is something that I’d always recommend!
“Then when you get home, you can go and have a look at the different plants and be able to identify it from the picture versus the picture in the book kind of thing.”
Learn your plants
“What I would say to people, anybody who is interested in starting doing something like this, like create a little folder in your in your gallery, in your phone and go along and take pictures of the plants and start with five,” Feebee says.
“Five plants that you that you know, you’d be able to identify because there’s always five that we love you. We all know what a daisy looks like. We all know what a nettle looks like.
“Start with five that you already know how to look out for. And then the next time, you’re going there for your walk, look for those five again and then try to find something else that you don’t know.”
She adds: “It doesn’t have to be Botany 101. But if you can learn a little bit about your plants and open a curiosity, I think that actually helps people to learn much more.”
Know your area
Feebee tells us that Irish people would “intuitively listen to the land” in years gone by and that we need to go back to that now.
“When I go on foraging tours, I tend to focus on urban areas. So what will you find in your local area, when you’re walking to the bus stop? When you’re bringing the kids to school in your local park, in your front garden, in your backarden. What will you find right beside you?
“Then you need to learn what are it’s uses, whether you ever use them or not, just to have that little bit of knowledge and understanding and appreciation of what’s growing around.”
Only take what you need
Always cut off what you need, don’t pull as you could very well pull the entire plant out.
“You want to give it a chance to grow again, so you’re not dragging it out by the roots enough there. Once you pull the roots off the plant is gone. And only take what you need and if for a job,” she explains.
“If you are excited that you’re going to make a curry and you want to put in some Nettles into it, know how much you’re going to need for it and only take that amount because at the end of the day, just because it’s out there and it’s free doesn’t mean we get to take it all.
“Wildlife relies on the plants for food because they don’t get to walk into little Supervalu to get their food, that’s their food source.”
Get apps
While she’s a big fan of field guides, Feebee is aware that we use our phones the most.
“There’s great apps as well to help people to be able to identify plants, and it’s there for us all,” she explained.
“There’s a fantastic app called Merlin and it identifies bird call bird calls so you could actually open up your Merlin app and you can walk along with your phone and as it hears the birds as you’re walking it will say this is a Starling or this is a Red Wing.”
Avoid the pee
Feebee says it’s her most asked question – how to avoid the pee! We mean, animals just go wherever!
“If you’re out for a walk on a laneway or a hedgeway, animals will tend to pee along edges of walkways. They don’t tend to walk two or three footsteps into a good thicket of plants. So I would say take a good few steps inward and you should be safe from animal pee,” she says.
“Forage from hip height up. And of course, always give it a good wash as well!”
Feebee will be leading her Foraging class at this year’s Brigit 2025 Festival, find out more here.