The Beginner's Garden with Jill McSheehy · Jill McSheehy

420 - Spring's Best Herbs for Food & Health with Bevin Cohen

·43 min·3 clips

Bevin reveals why dandelion roots harvested in fall are key for detoxifying your liver and boosting energy.

This episode features host Jill McSheehy interviewing Bevin Cohen, author of "Herbs in Every Season," about practical herb gardening and foraging. Cohen emphasizes a seasonal approach to understanding and utilizing common plants. He explains that a plant's medicinal potency and flavor change throughout its life cycle, using dandelion as a prime example. Dandelion roots are most potent in late fall and early spring, while the leaves are best harvested during spring vegetative growth. Cohen identifies several common "weeds" gardeners can forage in late April or early May, including chickweed, plantain, wood sorrel, prunella (self-heal), purple dead nettle, and lamb's quarters. He notes that wild plants like lamb's quarters can be more nutritionally dense than many domesticated crops. For safe foraging, he stresses proper plant identification, highlighting the difference between common chickweed and its lookalike, mouse-ear chickweed. The conversation then explores specific uses for calendula, dill, chickweed, dandelion, and parsley. Calendula is praised not only for skincare but also as a tea for stomach inflammation and as an edible flower for salads and rice. Dill seeds can be toasted and infused into vinegar to create a flavorful condiment. Chickweed, a low-growing spring and fall plant, is useful for topical salves and should be dried with good airflow before infusion. Every part of the dandelion is usable: flowers for topical oils, bitter leaves for digestion, and roots for liver-supporting tinctures or roasted as a coffee additive. Parsley is rich in minerals and can be infused in vinegar for nutrition or in oil for topical acne treatments. A key insight is that bitter spring greens like dandelion historically helped reawaken digestive systems after a winter of heavy, stored foods. Cohen suggests that nature provides what we need in each season, aligning plant growth cycles with human health needs. He recommends preserving herbs through oils, salves, and tinctures to have their medicine available year-round. For beginners nervous about foraging, he advises learning from experienced people and using multiple identification resources. The tone is educational and conversational, with the host sharing her own gardening experiences. The style is practical and encouraging, focused on actionable tips for integrating herbs into daily life. This episode is ideal for beginner gardeners interested in moving beyond vegetables to explore culinary and medicinal uses for easy-to-grow plants. Listeners seeking highly scientific or commercial farming advice might find it less relevant.

As heard by us

Practical herb guidance that stays grounded in growing, foraging, and use.

The episode keeps its attention on herbs as both kitchen staples and medicinal plants, with Bevan Cohen offering grounded guidance on growing, using, and foraging calendula, dill, chickweed, plantain, dandelion, and parsley.

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Need herbs you can grow, use, and actually understand?

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