National Geographic Backyard Guide to Edible Wild Plants

by Mimi Hernandez, Heather Wood Buzzard

Forage more than 100 delicious edible plants straight from your backyard with this useful, engaging, beautifully illustrated guide.

Nature-lovers, gardeners, and foodies can turn their backyard into a bounty with tips for identifying wild plants, advice for beginner and experienced harvesters, and more than 600 ideas and recipes to bring the wild into the kitchen.

Joining National Geographic's long line of successful nature guides, National Geographic Backyard Guide to Edible Wild Plants is a colorful, appealing handbook to 102 common wild plants that can be foraged for delicious food and drink. From superstar sunflowers to spicy field mustard to alluring wild grapes, this book identifies a wide variety of flavors and textures that even novice foragers can learn to harvest with care, safety, and sustainability. From there, creative uses abound, including the how-tos behind:
elderberry jam
chickweed salad
sunchoke soup
sassafras tea
wild carrot cake
homemade backyard cider
This guide is divided into seven sections based on the parts of the plant most relevant to foragers: roots, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, shoots, as well as the "backyard superstars"—a dozen plants that are common, easy to identify, and abundant in their culinary possibilities. Every plant is photographed, illustrated for ease of learning, and described in detail, including hundreds of preparation tips and recipes, thanks to authors Mimi Prunella Hernandez and Heather Wood Buzzard, who bring botanical authority and kitchen creativity to every entry.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Science

288 pages, Paperback

Published April 8, 2025

Reviews

[Joanna Yutrzenka]

Very useful, left off on page 124, will circle back in the spring

[Rae]

First of all: Gorgeous! I literally gasped when I flipped through the pages. There are vivid photographs and beautiful illustrations that keep me coming back even when I'm not looking up anything in particular.

I love the layout, where we get 1-2 pages of real-life photos and info, and one page of comprehensive illustrations. There's a fair amount of information packed into each plant's page. The minimal information includes identification, harvesting, and use. But sprinkled throughout the book are also interesting recipes for edible dishes, therapeutic soaks, and more. This is a book that's definitely sitting out in view of the room.

[Helen Flanagan Sullivan]

The best nature book by far that I have ever owned. Chock full of gorgeous illustrations and information. A two page layout for each plant with information and descriptions on the left and illustrations on the right makes this the perfect book. I would read and study two plants each morning over a cup of coffee. I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I liked it so much I bought my brother one.

[Amanda]

I would have liked to see invasive or native status more prominently instead of just the range map. Garlic mustard "considered by some an invasive alien" is actually concerning, and recommending it flowering on the second year is irresponsible.

[Dalton DiBell]

Hell yeah you bet your ass I’m stopping to eat some berries on the hike now that I can successfully identify them.

[Michelle Buss]

Great pictures and descriptions yayyy