Tacony Creek Park Foraging Walk Gives Outdoor Enthusiasts Chance To See Edible Plants

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Oftentimes, all you see wandering around a local park is green. Just a bunch of green, says MyKyah Vessels.

The Alliance for Watershed Education Fellow, who works with the nonprofit Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, said people often fail to realize that some of that lush greenery we take for granted in neighborhood parks is actually edible plant life that is perfectly safe to be ingested.

Vessels led foraging tours during the past two Saturdays at the Tacony Creek Park in which she led small groups of participants down the park's paths to point out what can, and cannot, be eaten or turned into herbal medicine.

The Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership is a stewardship and advocacy group whose goal is to connect area residents and visitors to their local waterways.

The 30-square-mile Tookany/Tacony-Frankford watershed comprises portions of both Montgomery County and the City of Philadelphia, with the Tookany Creek section containing the creek’s headwaters in the eastern Montgomery County communities of Abington, Cheltenham, Jenkintown, Rockledge and Springfield.

During the recent tours, which took place on Aug. 14 and Aug. 21, residents of both Philadelphia and Montgomery County got a chance to see what types of edible plants grow right in their own backyards, and the best methods by which to prepare them, if, of course, they are safe for ingestion.

Some wild plants, Vessels said, can be used as food or prepared as a tea while other naturally occurring plants can be used to make herbal medicine to treat a variety of conditions.

The plants that Vessels discussed and pointed out included Broadleaf Plantain, Mugwort, Burdock, Black Walnut and Yellow Wood Sorrel.

Vessels, who resides in Philadelphia's Lawncrest neighborhood, appeared quite comfortable with identifying and picking the various plant species and showing off their properties to those who attended the tours.

A handful of the participants sampled some of the edible plants, impressed with the fact that these otherwise innocuous plants likely often go overlooked by joggers, walkers and bikers passing through the park during a bout of exercise.

The tours coincided with Vessels’ Alliance for Watershed Education Capstone projected, which focuses on foraging in Tacony Creek Park.

Visit here to learn more about Vessels and her work with TTF.