Wild Harvest Life - Winter Family in PNW

After watching this native plant grow from fresh green shoots,  I finally saw its deep pink-purple flowers open on our property  in Southwest Washington. Some plants become interesting because we pass them without knowing their story. I first noticed this wildflower as green leaves among grasses on our property in Southwest Washington. With no flowers yet, it looked a little like a nettle, so I kept watching it. As the season continued, upright stems appeared, followed by small pink buds and deep pink-purple flowers. After some flowers faded, persistent structures formed a seed-head-like pattern around the upper stem. Watching these changes reminded me that plant identification is often a process, not a single moment. A Wild Plant I Watched Change Through the Season The young plants were low and partly hidden. Later, four-sided stems rose above them, tiny hairs became visible, and opposite leaf pairs were easier to see. By midsummer, vivid flowers made this damp edge of our pr...

Blue-violet wild chicory caught my eye  while I waited during my husband’s physical therapy appointment. A Blue Flower Beside the Parking Lot My husband recently had knee replacement surgery, so physical therapy has become part of our regular routine. One day, while I was waiting for him during an appointment, I walked toward one side of the parking lot. Beyond the pavement, near a busy road, a flash of blue-violet caught my eye. The flowers were unlike most of the summer wildflowers around them. Their color was soft but vivid, somewhere between clear sky blue and lavender. They grew on stiff, branching stems among dry grasses and other roadside plants. I stopped immediately and wondered, Could this be chicory? After looking closely at the flowers, stems, and growing habit, I confirmed that it was wild chicory ( Cichorium intybus ), a member of the aster family. I had seen chicory in books and photographs, but this was the first time I had noticed it growing in person. I photograph...

These patterned leaves caught my attention while I was searching for matsutake in a Pacific Northwest forest. I have explored the mountains of the Pacific Northwest for several years, but the summer of 2026 was the first time I spent so much time walking through the forest specifically looking for mushrooms. The weather had felt unusually unpredictable to me, and then I began hearing surprising reports that matsutake mushrooms were appearing in the middle of summer. Matsutake is a mushroom I normally associate with fall, so naturally my curiosity led me back into the forest. Near the places where we found American matsutake, I also noticed some of the unusual plants that make a Pacific Northwest conifer forest feel so mysterious. There was Candystick ( Allotropa virgata ), Gnome Plant ( Hemitomes congestum ), and Beargrass ( Xerophyllum tenax ). None of these plants guarantees that matsutake will be nearby, but seeing them made me slow down and pay closer attention to the whole forest—...

These soft pink blackberry flowers are the beginning of our summer berry harvest. Do you know what these soft pink flowers will become? Here is a hint: they belong to one of the most familiar summer berries in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, you guessed it. They are blackberry flowers. Blackberries are sold in grocery stores almost everywhere, but during the season, I rarely need to buy them. On our family’s ten-acre mountain property in Southwest Washington, the thorny canes grow in so many places that I can walk outside each day and pick only the fruit that has ripened. This year, the season surprised me. At our elevation of about 1,800 feet, the berries often do not become fully ripe until late August. Sometimes we wait so long that we miss the best moment. In 2026, however, I began eating the first ripe blackberries at the end of July. Blackberry season came early to our mountain. From Soft Pink Flowers to Dark Purple Fruit Green, red, and fully ripe blackberries can appear together as...

From the Washington mountains to our table—fresh wild American matsutake transformed a simple bowl of ramen into a very special meal.  There are meals that are expensive because of their ingredients, and there are meals that feel priceless because of the story behind them. This bowl of matsutake ramen was both simple and precious. My husband and I had spent the day together in the Washington mountains searching for matsutake. We walked quietly over soft moss, looked at many interesting plants, listened to birds, and enjoyed a peaceful day in the Pacific Northwest forest. We had planned to cook ramen while we were out, but the mosquitoes were so intense that we were afraid we would be eaten alive if we stopped long enough to cook. Instead, we made a meal from the snacks we had packed. As soon as we returned home, however, I knew exactly what I wanted to make with the fresh matsutake we had found. That became our dinner: premium matsutake ramen with pork for my husband and green onio...

Finding this firm, fresh American matsutake in July was an unforgettable PNW forest surprise. I could hardly believe what we were holding. Matsutake is the mushroom my husband and I normally associate with cool autumn rain, fallen needles and the unmistakable fragrance of the fall forest. Yet there it was in the Pacific Northwest—in the middle of July. The mushroom was firm, clean and remarkably fresh. It had not been damaged by insects, and it carried the familiar aroma that we usually wait all year to experience. For a moment, I kept wondering: How could a fall mushroom be growing here in summer? As many of you may already know, I am a Korean woman approaching 50 who married an American and now lives in the mountains of Washington State. Living here has taught me that food memories can travel across oceans. Sometimes they remain almost exactly as we remember them. At other times, they meet a new forest, a different climate and another family—and become an entirely new tradition. Mats...