An Immersive Course In Foraging and Herbal Medicine
I'll Teach You 64 Edible and Medicinal Plants in this 8 Week Online Program
Increase Your Self-Sufficiency and Learn How to Turn Common Backyard Plants Into Delicious Food Sources and Potent Medicines...
It Started with a Burning Desire to Learn How to Live Off the Land...
Have you ever wondered which plants people used for food and medicine before settlers ever arrived to America?
It seems like a simple enough question, but as a teenager fresh out of high school and with a growing (almost burning) desire to learn how to live off the land, I realized that I had never heard anyone talk about this topic before.
I started wondering, “Surely all of the edible and medicinal plants that Native Americans used are still growing here, right?
So… Why doesn’t anybody use them anymore?”Â
It was that very question that led me to discover the world of foraging.
No one had ever told me that surrounding us every day are highly nutritious(and delicious) foods and potent herbal medicines that countless generations before us have depended on for survival.
It wasn’t long before I had amassed a small collection of plant books and started harvesting wild plants myself, and I was absolutely amazed at what I found.
Fast forward to 2026 and I’ve made foraging for wild food and medicine my lifelong passion. I’m now a full-time foraging instructor, and I’m blessed to be able to share my knowledge to a Youtube audience of over 200,000 subscribers.
My mission is simple: To document the edible and medicinal plants of the Southeast, and teach Southerners how to harvest clean food and natural medicine from the wild plants that surround them every day!
Designed Specifically for the Deep South!
*If you live slightly north of the region shown on the map (northwest Arkansas, Tennessee, north Alabama & Georgia, western Carolinas, etc.) this course will still be very applicable, but it was made specifically for the region shown.
Introducing:Â Jumpstart to Foraging
This 8-Week Foraging Sprint Will Get You "Back to the Land" and Familiarize You with the Most Useful Plants the South Has to Offer
Jumpstart to Foraging is an 8-week online program with one simple goal: To help you identify, harvest, and use more wild edible and medicinal plants from your local area.
Each week we’ll meet on a video call where I’ll go through the major aspects of plant identification, foraging safety, herbal medicine making, etc. (and don’t worry if you can’t make the live classes, they’ll all be recorded.)
Throughout the course we’ll also be looking at 64 (or more) useful plants that grow wild in our region. In this program our sole focus will be on local, wild plants. This will ensure that students will be able to walk outside their front door and immediately start finding the plants they’re learning about.
Included with the live classes is a library of pre-recorded lectures where you’ll find dozens of video lessons with hundreds of high quality photos covering our local plant life. (See details below).
In this program students will be encouraged to go outside and get to know their local plant life, and will be given tools and resources to quickly identify new useful plants(as well as homework, for those wanting an extra challenge).
Both throughout the course and after the course is over students will have 1-on-1 access to the instructor to help confirm their identifications and answer questions about edibility, medicinal uses, preparation, etc.
An 8-Week Live Online Course
Start Date: April 14, 2026
Tuesdays at 7pm Central Time
- Learn the best-tasting and most common wild foods that you can find in your own backyard and favorite hiking trails.Â
- Discover which Southern plants have been used to treat common everyday ailments like cold & flu, allergies, arthritis, stress, fatigue, high blood pressure, and much more!
- Sharpen your skills in plant identification and get 1-on-1 guidance from a qualified instructor so you can harvest new plants without the fear of getting it wrong!
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Start Finding Dozens of Edible Plants in Your Area That are Cleaner, Fresher, and More Nutritious Than Anything You Can Buy at the Grocery Store!Â
Learn How to Craft Homemade Herbal Medicines With Common Southern Plants
Gain Access to an Abundant Supply of Free Food and Natural Medicine That Comes Back Year After Year
Learn the Skills Your Ancestors Relied On During Hard Times
Pass Those Skills Down to the Next Generation- They Might Need Them!
8 Week Course Outline:
Week 1: Jumpstart to Foraging
- Learn the step-by-step process I've used to safely consume over 300 plants from the wild + tips for learning new plants quickly
- Foraging Safety: Avoiding pollution and environmental contaminants in the landscape
- Medicine Making: Directions for making simple herbal teas from wild plants
- 8 common useful plants of April
Week 2: Building Confidence in the Art of Foraging
- Overcoming the Fearful Four: Pokeweed perils, safrole & sassafras, cyanide in wild cherry bark, boneset & pyrrolizidine alkaloids
- Poisonous Lookalikes: How to avoid eating the wrong plant (no matter how closely it looks like the real thing)
- Plant Identification for Beginners Part 1
- 4 (More) Useful Plants of April
Week 3: Edible and Medicinal Mints of the Southeast
- A study of 8 of our common Southern mints with notes on identification, edibility, and medicinal uses
- Includes mint species found in April & May (Florida betony, self heal, bee balm, mountain mint, and skullcap)
- Plant Identification for Beginners Part 2
- Medicine Making: How to make simple herbal extracts(tinctures)
Week 4: Native Southern Fruit Trees
- Learn about some of our famous(and lesser known) edible fruit trees including persimmons, pawpaw, mayhaw, red mulberry, Chickasaw plum, and rusty blackhaw (including medicinal uses where applicable)
- Plant Identification for Beginners Part 3
- Medicine Making: How to make herbal oils and salves
Week 5: Medicinal Trees, Shrubs, and Vines of the Southeast
- Trees, shrubs, and vines for helping with depression & anxiety, inflammation & pain, relaxation & sleep, energy, high blood pressure, and more!
- Elderberry Syrup: Identification and preparation
- How to harvest and preserve bark from medicinal trees
- Advanced Medicine Making: Percolation tinctures
Week 6: Processing, Preparing, and Preserving Wild Foods
- A deep dive into some of my favorite wild food projects! Learn how to make old-fashioned sassafras root beer, mayhaw jelly, persimmon nut bread, and more!
- Learn how to identify and prepare America's only caffeine-rich herbal tea!
- Our Very Own Native Passionfruit Vine! A tropical flavor in a not-so-tropical region
- Southern Wild “Lemonade”: How to make a tasty sour drink from a common shrub you’ve walked by a hundred times (one of my personal favorites)
- Food from oak trees: Acorn harvesting and processing
Week 7: Southern Herbs for Cold and Flu
- 8 herbs for fighting infection and healing the lungs, including identification and notes on preparation
- An introduction to creating herbal formulas
- Medicine Making: Using herbs in a nebulizer
Week 8: Wild Weeds, Southern Superfoods, and Lesser-Known Useful Southern Plants
- Common edible weeds of lawns and gardens
- Two Southern "weeds" that are world-renowned medicines for brain function
- A common edible weed that was discovered to be higher in omega 3 fatty acids than any other vegetable
What's Included In This Course:
8 Weeks of Live Online Training (Replays Included)
Jumpstart to Foraging includes 8 weeks of live training designed to equip students to harvest more food and medicine from the wild plants growing around them.
Each week we’ll cover a foundational aspect of foraging including topics like wild food processing, botany, herbal medicine making, etc, with an exclusive focus on plants found growing wild in the Southern US.
Class will meet on Tuesday nights at 7pm Central Time, starting on April 14. Lessons will last about an hour and a half (or slightly longer).
By the end of the course you'll have been introduced to at least 64 edible/medicinal wild Southern plants, including how to identify them, their properties, and direction on how to prepare them.
1-On-1 Access to the Instructor, So You Never Feel Like You're All On Your Own When Harvesting Plants!
In this program students will be encouraged to send pictures of the plants they're finding to the instructor and ask questions outside of class.
It's important that new foragers have an expert in their corner to help them identify new plants before they consume them.
In my experience this greatly speeds up the learning process, and allows students to be 100% certain that they have the right plant!
Students will also be encouraged to remain in contact after the 8 week course is over, ensuring they can get guidance any time they need it. (I still have students of previous courses that email me regularly, and I'm always happy to answer questions!)
The Southerner's Guide to Foraging Online Course (Normally $200, Included with This Program)
A full length, pre-recorded foraging course that will allow you to keep learning long after the 8-week program is over. *Includes lifetime access*
- 61 lessons with over 18 hours of instructional content, all with one goal in mind: To teach you how to identify and use our local edible and medicinal flora.
- Medicine making lessons cover making teas, tinctures, oils & salves, herbal nasal sprays, etc.
- This standalone course normally sells for $200, but is included with the Jumpstart to Foraging program and comes with lifetime access.
Medicinal Plants of the Southeast Online Course (Normally $27, Included with This Program)
*Includes lifetime access*
- Covers 15 medicinal plants that grow wild in the Southeastern US, with identification videos filmed in the field.
- Over 900 students have signed up for this self-paced online course. Normally $27, it's included when you sign up for Jumpstart to Foraging.
4 Bonus Workshops Bundle
When you sign up for Jumpstart to Foraging, I'm also throwing in 4 bonus workshops that I taught throughout 2025. Each one runs about 1.5 hours (see topics below).
Edible and Medicinal Plant Flashcards for Learning Plants Quickly
One of the very best tools for memorizing large numbers of plants quickly is flashcards.
When I was first learning about edible plants over 10 years ago, I made my own flashcard deck with pictures I found on the internet. To this day I still think it is the most effective learning tool for enabling beginners to quickly locate new plants in their area.
That's why I created this deck of edible and medicinal plant flashcards (and don't worry, I took all of the pictures myself this time). Just scan through the pictures for a few minutes each day, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start finding new plants!
It includes 128 cards, covering 64 plants (2 pictures for each plant), and of course, just like everything else in this program, it includes only wild Southeastern plants.Â
Printable "1-Page" Plant Profiles So You Can Identify Plants With Confidence Once You Find Them
Once you start finding new plants, you'll want a way to confirm your identifications. That's where my 1-Page Plant Profiles come in....
Each profile show multiple parts of each plant, with a focus on key identification features.
Numbered lists below the pictures systematically describe each important feature that you want to look for.
I’ve also included red numbers that correspond to each identification feature, which makes them easy and intuitive to use. To make a confident ID, all you have to do is match each feature of the plant in front of you to the numbered descriptions on the profile.
If the plant you’re trying to identify matches each feature, you know you have the right plant! (At least that's the idea. I still highly recommend students send me pictures of the plant so I can double check, and cross reference with other sources.)
At the end of each profile there is a summary of important edible or medicinal uses for each plant to give you a starting point for further research.
Lastly, the profiles can be downloaded to your phone for use in the field, or downloaded to your computer so you can print them and have access to the information without internet or electricity.
I'm currently up to 58 profiles, and there's a good chance I'll be adding more in the future.
Check out an example of one below!
This Course Includes Lifetime Access To All Course Videos and Materials!
Still On the Edge? It's All Backed by a 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee!
I'm so sure that you'll love my Jumpstart to Foraging program that I offer a 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee. If for ANY REASON you don’t like the program, you have 30 days after you sign up to change your mind and ask for a refund. No hassle, no hard feelings.
When you enroll today there’s absolutely no risk involved. If you feel like the course ends up not being what you expected, all you have to do is ask for your money back. It’s that simple.
Customer service is my top priority, so if you have any questions or concerns, you can expect a quick and responsive reply to get them taken care of.
Meet Your Instructor
Matthew Hunter is a professional foraging instructor and author of several online courses including Medicinal Plants of the Southeast and The Southerner’s Guide to Foraging. He is the creator of the Legacy Wilderness Academy YouTube channel, where he teaches foraging and herbal medicine to more than 200,000 subscribers.
Matthew lives with his wife, daughter, and son in West Monroe, Louisiana.
Frequently Asked Questions
What If I Can't Make It to the Live Classes?
No worries! All of the live classes will be recorded and made available to watch anytime.
What If I Don't Live in the Purple Area on the Map?
Many of the plants covered in this course grow throughout the whole Eastern U.S., not just in the purple area on the map. If you live north of the purple zone, about 85%-90% of the plants we cover will still grow in your area. If you live west of the purple zone, the dryer climate of central Texas and central Oklahoma will lower the amount of crossover. If you live in south Florida, the climate becomes tropical and the plants become very different. This course will not be as good of a fit for you in those areas.
How Long Will I Be Able To Access The Course?
You'll have lifetime access to all course materials. They may occasionally be updated, but they won't ever be deleted.
Will This Course Work For My Son/Daughter?
Jumpstart to Foraging is homeschool-mom approved. It was made for adults, but will also work great for high-schoolers as a nature/science/outdoor course. All of my lessons are family friendly, and after taking the course, your kiddos will be begging you to take them outside to explore! Get ready for a mess in the kitchen after enrolling in this course!
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