Wild Harvest Life - Winter Family in PNW

Fresh fall mugwort in my hand. Even in fall, finding these familiar green and silvery leaves in Washington makes me happy. Mugwort is one of those plants that feels deeply personal to me. In Korea, mugwort is called ssuk (쑥) , and many Koreans have strong memories connected to it—especially spring mugwort. Spring mugwort is tender, fragrant, and widely loved. People often use it in pancakes, soups, rice cakes, and many seasonal dishes. But I live here in Washington State now, far from Korea, and that changes how I look at things. Even if fall mugwort is not as soft or as aromatic as spring mugwort, I still feel happy whenever I find it. If it carries even a little of that familiar mugwort scent, it already feels special to me. Recently, I noticed fresh, soft mugwort leaves appearing here and there as summer was fading into fall. That made me want to film a closer look at this plant—its front, back, shape, texture, and the way it changes as the season moves forward. What Fall Mugwo...

Ripe purple-black salal berries and red immature fruits  can appear on the same shrub. When I first moved to Washington State after marrying my husband, there was one plant I noticed almost every time we walked along a road or forest trail. In spring, its newest leaves appeared in an almost yellow-green color. They were so bright and glossy that they seemed to glow whenever the sunlight touched them. Nearby, I would sometimes notice clusters of tiny pale-green fruits. Later, some of them turned red. Because I knew almost nothing about the wild plants of the Pacific Northwest at that time, my natural reaction was to reach out and ask my husband, “Can I eat this?” He would immediately tell me, “Never eat the red berries.” Years later, I finally learned the name of this plant. It is Salal ( Gaultheria shallon ), one of the most familiar evergreen shrubs in the Pacific Northwest—and one of the wild foods many people walk past without recognizing. My husband’s warning carried an importa...