Prospect Park Group Foraging Tour

Explore Prospect Park's late summer bounty of edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms. Forage for burdock root, wild greens, seasonal nuts, and gourmet fruits while learning their culinary and health applications from an expert guide.

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Provider	Vetted Local Provider You’ll be connected with a trusted local event partner directly after booking. (4.5-star rating across 211 reviews)
Location	Brooklyn - Prospect Park Grand Army Plaza entrance
Pricing	$650 for up to 15 people; $15 per additional person
Duration	Up to 2 hours For a shortened session, please request desired length in special requests at checkout.
Group Size	Up to 35 people Group size can be changed after booking if needed.
Materials	See event description.
Other	General Notes Please Note: Participants should be dressed for the weather, and be aware of very bad subway service. Trains are often canceled due to track work. No sandals (there are mosquitoes, thorns and poison ivy). Everyone should have plastic bags for veggies and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, which spoil in plastic, containers for berries from late spring through fall, water and lunch, and extra layers when it's cold. Digging implements and pocket knives are optional. Please bring plastic bags for vegetables and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, drinking water, and a pen (to sign in). Dogs are permitted. Children are encouraged to attend. There's no smoking whatsoever at any time. Policies Price Match Guarantee If you find a similar event with a competitor at a lower price, we’ll gladly match it. This applies to events of comparable description and duration. Simply provide the details when booking, or within 72 hours of your booking, and we’ll ensure you get the best value. Contact an event concierge to get started. Terms and conditions apply

Explore edible and medicinal wild plants and fungi in Prospect Park in late summer, across cultivated areas, wooded paths and lawns.

Burdock is one of the park's great late-summer finds. This powerful detoxifying herb, sold at premium prices in health food stores, grows abundantly throughout. It can be eaten as a root vegetable, marinated, and baked into a surprisingly satisfying vegan substitute for jerky.

The park also offers sassafras root for making tea and root beer, common spicebush with its allspice-like berries, and ground ivy, which serves as a gentle herbal diuretic and beverage ingredient. Leafy green vegetables abound as well, including hedge mustard, yellow watercress, wood sorrel, goutweed, lamb's-quarters (effectively wild spinach), chickweed (with its remarkably corn-like flavor), poor man's pepper, Asiatic dayflower, and lady's thumb.

Nuts are coming into season. Hickory nuts, delicious but never commercialized at scale, litter the sidewalk a quarter mile south of the Picnic House. Hazelnuts drop along the edges of the Mall just north of the skating rink. Beech trees grow throughout the park, and white oak acorns, scrumptious once leached of their bitter tannins, are widespread. The seeds of the Kentucky coffee-tree make an outstanding caffeine-free coffee substitute and an excellent flavoring for chocolate-based recipes.

Gourmet wild fruits include native hawthorn berries (relatives of apples and used in herbal medicine as a heart tonic), crab apples, Northern black haw berries (wild raisins that taste like a combination of bananas and prune butter), paper mulberry, and American hackberries with their candy-like outer coating.

Spectacular mushrooms appear after sufficient rain: hen-of-the-woods (sold as maitake), giant chicken mushrooms, golden-brown honey mushrooms, ringless honey mushrooms, and wine-cap stropharia can emerge anywhere in the park.

Gourmet wild fruits round out the harvest. Native hawthorn berries (relatives of the apple, used in herbal medicine as a heart tonic), crab apples, and Northern black haw berries (wild raisins with a taste that resembles a blend of banana and prune butter) may all be present. Paper mulberry and American hackberries, with their candy-sweet outer coating reminiscent of the shell of an M&M, add still more variety. The seeds of the Kentucky coffee-tree make an outstanding caffeine-free coffee substitute and an excellent flavoring for chocolate-based preparations, and are well worth looking for.

Spectacular mushrooms may appear as well if rainfall has been adequate beforehand: huge hen-of-the-woods (sold in health food stores as maitake), gigantic chicken mushrooms, golden-brown honey mushrooms, ringless honey mushrooms, and savory wine-cap stropharia can emerge anywhere in the park after sufficient rain.

Meeting Place:

Meet at the stone benches by the stone wall at Prospect Park's Grand Army Plaza entrance, across the street from the library, between the columns with the eagles. Not under the traffic circle, and not in front of the library itself.