Foraging School with Robin Greenfield and Eric Joseph Lewis

Hello Dear Friends!

We are elated to share with you the opportunity to attend Foraging School!

Foraging School will be hosted and taught by Robin Greenfield and Eric Joseph Lewis.
Robin and Eric have been teaching foraging together for the last year and have independently been leading Reconnection to Earth classes for a combined experience of over 15 years. This Foraging School is a new offering we are so excited about.

Registration Request Form

Meet the Instructors:

In 2019 Robin completed an entire year of growing and foraging 100% of his food and medicine. In 2022 he completed a month of foraging 100% of his food, with no gardens, down to the salt, oil and spices. He began passionately leading plant walks in 2022 and has a wealth of practical advice to share from experience of how you can truly break free from the global, industrial food system and live happily on the abundance of Earth.

Eric began foraging in 2010 and quickly realized that deepening the relationship between people and plants would become his life’s work. He leads foraging walks and permaculture courses regularly in the mid Atlantic area near Washington DC. Inspired by the wise words of Frank Cook, Eric is always encouraging people to eat something wild everyday, and to treat plants like friends. (Follow Eric on: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube)

Foraging School Content:

Identifying, Harvesting and Preparing of Wild Food and Medicine
Foraging Walks and Plant Identification (daily)
- Tips to become a successful forager from us, experienced foragers!
- Including discussion of toxic plants
- Identifying plants to avoid and “look-alikes”
- Timing the harvest and identifying when plants are edible
Food Processing and Preservation Workshop (daily)
- Including the basics on foraging equipment – drying, freezing, canning and cold storage.
- Including tips for efficiency so you can actually break free from the grocery store.
Sustainability and Ethics of Foraging
How and Where to Safely Forage
- Including discussions on pesticides, industrial pollutants, exhaust from cars, urban foraging, etc.
Deepening your Connection with Earth and our Plant Relatives

We may cover in more depth:

Foraging Invasives
Botany

Through the plant walks you will be introduced to 50+ different plant friends, with a minimum of five minutes of discussion of each plant.

We will select 3-5 plants to immerse with, and learn about them in the field, how to process and preserve them and we will enjoy them together in a meal.

We will likely get acquainted with greens, vegetables (shoots, stalks, tubers/roots), herbs, herbal teas, mushrooms, fruits and berries, nuts, seeds and grains. Depending on what is on site, we may not have examples of each of these categories of food.

Habitat restoration project. As stewards to the Earth and to the land we will be spending the weekend on we will take part in some habitat restoration as a community. We will be doing some removal of “invasive” plants to create more suitable habitat for native plants. Some of the “invasive” plants we harvest will be part of our workshops on food processing and medicine making medicine, doing an ecosystem service while meeting our needs of sustenance.

We will share communal meals made of foraged food!

We will bring samples of foods and medicines that we have preserved so you can learn from these examples as well. We will bring herbal teas, dried mushrooms, dried fruit, nuts, canned meat, sea salt and more.

The first stage of planning Foraging School was to gauge interest and learn preferences from the community. That’s you!

Thank you to all who filled out the Foraging School survey and welcome to all who are new to this opportunity of attending Foraging School! Over 250 of you responded with interest in attending Foraging School!

We have taken in the feedback and preferences shared by you, the community, and have created the following plan for Foraging School

To register for Foraging School please fill out this registration request form and secondary survey.

We have set a maximum of 200 people to attend Foraging School and we will likely have more people fill out the registration request than we are able to accommodate. By filling out registration now, you are reserving your space, but your reservation will be pending. We will send an update email by June 15th, with an update of whether your request to attend has been approved.

Location: The Reed Center (1932 Mountain Church Rd. Middletown, Maryland 21769) (about one hour northwest of Washington, D.C.)

Dates: August 18th-20th. Arrival Friday afternoon or evening, get settled in, welcome circle Friday evening, classes Saturday morning until Sunday late afternoon, departure Sunday late afternoon/evening or Monday morning.

Accommodations: Primitive, simple accommodations are the plan.

Lodging: Camping on site, with each person being responsible for their own camping gear (tent, sleeping gear, etc.) (For those that desire indoor accommodations you could book something nearby and come for the days.)

Toilets: Compost Toilets.

Cooking: Fire pits with grates for cooking over and possibly electric pressure cookers/crockpots.

Water: Wonderful well water on site.

Showers: No showers on site. There is a creek for dipping in 3.8 miles away. There will be a hose set up for washing off.

Hand washing: Hand washing stations with biodegradable soap.

Food: Communal meals, consisting substantially of foraged and locally grown food. Each participant who would like to take part in the communal meals will contribute financially to cover the costs of food. 84% of people who responded to the survey chose this as their preference. After we have a headcount and have done more research on food sourcing, we will share the cost of food per person for the communal meals.

Attendees can also cook food on their own or in groups they organize. Fire pits will be available for cooking.

We will likely be preparing this food over a fire, so it will be simple foods such as pots of soup, grains, cooked veggies/greens, fresh fruits and herbal teas. There will be meat and plant-based options if there is a desire for both by the community. We will prep food as a community, however we expect that there will be enough of a community where anyone who does not want to do food prep will not be needed to. We may bring in a teammate to manage the food. 88% of people said they would enjoy take part in food prep.

Communal Chores: As a community we will take care of basic chores to be stewards to the land that we are on. Chores will be very basic and minimal. 84% of people who responded to the survey selected that they would like to take part in communal chores.

Suggested Donation: Sliding scale $100-$300 per person.

Service Trade: For those where a donation is not in the flow, Service Trade is an option. Service Trade could include food prep during the school, setting up in the days leading up to the school, sourcing and picking up food, handling admin and logistics, marketing the school. We are open to suggestions as well.

Scholarship: If you’d like to apply for a scholarship, please let us know in the registration request form and secondary survey.

Children are welcome.

Pets: No dogs or cats.

Number of attendees: 100 to 200 most likely.

Ride Share: We will create a community group so that ride shares can be facilitated by those who desire.

Our focus is to provide you with an incredible opportunity to immerse in a weekend of foraging and return home informed, inspired, motivated and with a sense of community to make foraging a foundational part of your life. We aim to run Foraging School on a very grassroots level, so that we can focus on foraging, rather than logistics. At the same time, we hope for this to be a practice of connecting deeply with Earth, existing simply and in gratitude for the basics of life, and in breaking free from consumerism and the conveniences of our industrialized lives.

To register for Foraging School please fill out this registration form and secondary survey.

Interested in other Schools with Robin? Check out Barefoot School In Asheville, North Carolina

Here is some inspiration in the meantime:

Visit Robin’s Foraging Guide for New Foragers!

Meet Eric Joseph Lewis and learn about his top ten wild edible greens to harvest!

Go on a plant walk with Robin, from your seat at home: