About The Wild Garden
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Imagine stepping outside your door and being able to recognize the abundant banquet of plants surrounding you. You’ll never look at those dandelions in your lawn the same way again! The Wild Garden provides community members with local, organic and sustainably harvested wild foods and herbs, through my monthly herbal box program.
Offering exciting, educational walks and workshops, The Wild Garden also introduces community members to bioregional, edible and medicinal plants. The Wild Garden encourages stewardship, co-creative relationships and care of the spaces we inhabit by teaching the kind of nature connection that fosters a greater intimacy and deeper understanding of the local landscape, |
About Me
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“I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and the study of nature.” ~Abraham Cowley
My name is Amber Westfall, and this is where you’ll usually find me during the growing season; leaning over or kneeling in a big patch of weeds, wearing a silly, floppy hat, often with a big, silly grin on my face. What can I say? Weeds make me happy! I am a simple living, nature loving, weed eating, backyard medicine making, urban homesteader passionate about wild foods and healing plants. I love sharing that passion with others through plant walks, workshops and teaching courses on herbalism at the International Academy Health Education Centre. In 2013 I became steward of a 1/2 acre of land as part of Just Food’s Start-up Farm Program. At this certified organic site, I have established the Wild Garden, incorporating permaculture design principles and dedicated to serving the plants, the soil and the community. |
Reconnecting People & Plants
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I love educating people about the useful plants growing all around them. I love to see the transformation that occurs when people realise how surrounded we all are by nutritious, edible and medicinal plants, even in an urban environment.
Once this connection is established, people want to know more, they become engaged and concerned about the health of the landscape they inhabit. They want to experience the plants first hand and integrate them into their lives. This kind of relationship changes the way we see the world, and in turn, changes how we live. When members support The Wild Garden not only are they receiving the exceptional wild foods and herb products, but they are also contributing to increased biodiversity, improved soil health and greater ecosystem balance at the bioregional level. Members are not simply consumers, they are fellow stewards of the land, in relationship with the natural world. |
Why Wild Foods?
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We now live in an age where food travels an average of 3000 km from field to plate, requiring vast amounts of fossil fuels and contributing to climate change, while disconnecting us from the landbase that sustains us.
With growing concerns about the source and quality of our sustenance and increasing rates of chronic disease and nature deficit disorder, health conscious, environmentally aware consumers need access to safe, healthy and ethical nourishment they can serve to their families with confidence. Research has shown that many wild foods and herbs have as much as 10 times the amount of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients as grocery store produce. Incorporating these plants into our meals increases dietary variety, reduces oxidative stress on the body and ensures we get a balance of nutrients. Wild foods and herbs are never genetically modified. |
