San Luis Obispo forager Nan Cole has invited me up for a very special event on Saturday, June 11, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. We'll start with a 2-hour medicinal plant walk in the morning, followed by an afternoon plant talk, Q&A session, and hands-on medicinal herb activities with me and Nan from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

The afternoon session will include foraged snacks, a wild tea tasting, and an herbal steam inhalation. I will have copies of my field guide, Medicinal Herbs of California, for sale and signing before and after the walk and workshop. The walk will highlight some of the key herbs in the book as we meet the plants on the trail.

Nan recently interviewed me on Instagram Live about the upcoming workshop. Here are links to the first interview on May 5 and the second interview on May 27.

Please visit Nan's Instagram page and DM her to sign up.

June will probably be our last full moon hike until the fall because the moon rises so late in July and August. So please join me and Rondia for the June Supermoon Sunset Nature Hike on Monday evening, June 13, from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m. 

We’ll gradually hike about 1.5 miles to a spectacular vista point, encountering some elevation gain on a well-worn, dirt fire road with uneven footing in places. Along the way we'll stop to meet some valuable edible and medicinal plants.

Visit this link to read more and sign up for the hike.

If you’ve walked or hiked with me this year (or any year), you’ve probably heard me rave about the special beauty of Pine Mountain. Please join our annual Summer Solstice Nature Hike on the Reyes Peak Trail on Saturday, June 18. We’ll visit some of the most spectacular scenery and habitat that Ventura County has to offer at an elevation of 7000 feet(!).  

According to Craig Carey, author of Hiking and Backpacking Santa Barbara and Ventura, the Reyes Peak Trail along the northern slope of the peak is “quite simply one of the most beautiful stretches in the southern Los Padres.”

Visit this link to read more and sign up.

Please join me and my wife Rondia for the third in a series of leisurely evening strolls on the historic wetland that is now the Ojai Meadows Preserve on Wednesday, June 29, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. We’ll identify native plants that have been used for centuries by the Chumash and other Indigenous people of California for shelter, food, medicine, fiber, ceremony and much more.

Gardeners will discover how these plants can be used in home yard and garden landscapes. We’ll view first-hand the many benefits of the preservation and restoration of this special piece of land by the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy  (OVLC).

Visit this link to read more and sign up.

Green Thumb Nursery is a small family-owned chain of full service nurseries in 5 Southern California locations, including Ventura. They have a surprisingly good collection of native plants and are committed to customer education. Lake Forest store Sales Manager Kathy Moine has done her homework on the subject of the proper varieties of Milkweed for Monarch Butterflies. To quote the text accompanying her video:

"Unfortunately, there is a lot of incorrect and misguided information circulating around the internet on Tropical Milkweed and Native Milkweed regarding their impacts on the Monarch Butterfly so we wanted to take the time to put together a well-researched fact-based video to help to set the record straight and to provide more clarity on the subject."

Visit this link to watch the entire video.