I’m working on a project wherein I catalog as many of the plants in my environment as I can. Actually, I’m mostly focusing on broad-leaf plants, since they seem most likely to be edible, compared to grass-type plants, bushes, and trees. Edibility is the primary characteristic that I’m trying to identify.

In the interest of keeping things manageable, I’m starting with my yard. When I’m satisfied that I’ve thoroughly cataloged all of the plants in my yard, I’ll move on to other environments like… somebody else’s yard.

I’m recording the plants by either scanning them (for plants whose leaves are already rather flat) or by placing them on a white sheet of paper and then photographing them. I cut out the images and then paste them into a blank journal. The entries are grouped by location and general date. As I identify the plants, I record their names and interesting facts about them, such as if they’re edible or poisonous.

My goal in the project is to become more familiar with the (potentially-edible) stuff that grows in my environment. It just seems like such a loss to be surrounded by edible stuff and only know of the grocery store as a source of food. By relying on others to produce my food, I may be winning as a human, but I feel like I’m failing as an animal.

One of the things that has resulted from this project is that I have a new awareness of the sheer diversity that can be present in a field. I used to just see a bunch of green, and leave it at that. Now, I’m just starting to see the different types of plants that are present. The other day, I was scanning a field, looking for anything except boring old grass, and I thought I saw some white clover flowers. “FOOD,” I thought. A second look revealed it to be just the sunlight creating highlights on some taller grass, but I really enjoyed that moment, where I had a more visceral (literally) understanding of one purpose for those white flowers. Just a little change in color really makes the clover pop out of a field of green.

So much of my perception of nature is like a kid’s crayon drawing. Field of grass: GREEN; sky: BLUE; earth: BROWN. Done. If that’s how people look at things, no wonder it’s easy for us to act without regard for the complexity and diversity that’s out there. I guess I’m having a little bit of my own Walden moment.