By Jeff Robbins, Wisconsin Public Radio

This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.

If you’ve never tasted the fruit from a pawpaw tree, you’re not alone. Due to its extremely short shelf life that renders the fruit edible for only days after being picked, pawpaw is an all-too-rare treat.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

This is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.” 

This spring break, transform your usual holiday into an educational excursion that connects your family with the natural world.

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Toward the end of 2023, I was newly unemployed and living by myself for the first time. 

In between jobs, searching for employment and a means of fulfillment and community, I began to reflect on how my mom got into gardening. In the dead of winter, memories of childhood summers spent pulling weeds, tilling soil and fleeing the occasional garter snake alongside her began to color my mind. 

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

This is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.” 

In the Great Lakes, the maple syrup harvest season begins when daytime temperatures rise above freezing while nights remain cold — typically from mid to late February for much of the region, and a bit later further north.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

This is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices” and check out part one of “Winter Wellness Pantry” for tips and tricks to stay healthy this winter with wild herbs of the Great Lakes. 

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

By Izzy Ross, Interlochen Public Radio

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with IPR and Grist, a nonprofit independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

Walking between rows of dormant cherry and apple trees in mid-November, Raul Gomez, operations manager at Wunsch Farms on the Old Mission Peninsula, pointed out sweet cherry varieties like black pearls.

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By Izzy Ross, Interlochen Public Radio

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with IPR and Grist, a nonprofit independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

Nine-year-old Gunner Vistisen was wearing goggles, a wooden mallet in hand, standing near a blue tarp lined with pumpkins on a lot in Traverse City.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

This story is a part of  “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.”

As the season shifts and the air chills, I find myself drawn to the warmth and sustenance that the wild foods of fall offer — from roots to mushrooms to nuts to herbs — and take great satisfaction in concocting nourishing recipes for my family and friends.

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“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.