Wild Herbs All Year Round: Chickweed, Daisy & Ground Ivy

Wild herb season is not just in spring: some of the best plants to forage grow almost all year round – often right in your own garden, where they get pulled as "weeds". Three classics you can start gathering right now.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

• Identifying it: Delicate, low-growing cushions with small oval leaves and tiny white star-shaped flowers. One key feature is the single fine line of hairs running along the stem, switching sides at each node
• Season: Year-round – it germinates and even flowers under snow
• Taste: Mild, reminiscent of young corn – perfect as a salad base, on bread, or in herb quark
• Yield: A bed edge often provides handfuls; simply "mow" it with scissors, it grows back

Daisy (Bellis perennis)

• Identifying it: Every child knows it – white ray florets around a yellow center, the leaves in a flat rosette on the ground; without flowers the rosettes can be confused with those of other daisy-family plants
• Season: Blooms almost all year, mainly spring through autumn; even mild winters bring flowers
• Using it: Flowers as an edible garnish and in herb butter, buds can be pickled like capers; young leaves in salad
• Taste: Mild and nutty, the buds slightly peppery

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

• Identifying it: Creeping runners with kidney-shaped, scalloped leaves and blue-violet lip-shaped flowers from April; smells spicy and pungent when rubbed. Ivy creeps through the same corners but has leathery, pointed-lobed leaves with pale veins and no scent when rubbed – and it is poisonous. Check several features together, and if in doubt leave the plant standing
• Season: Spring through autumn, leaves often stay green even in winter
• Using it: Use sparingly as a seasoning herb – pungent and minty, traditionally in herb soups (Maundy Thursday soup) and as "wild chocolate mint": leaves dipped in dark chocolate
• Important: A seasoning herb, not a salad herb – use it sparingly

Basic foraging rules

• Only take what you can identify with certainty – chickweed's hair line, for example, is one distinguishing feature from the poisonous scarlet pimpernel. Never rely on a single feature – check several together, and if in doubt leave the plant where it is
• Collect away from roads, dog-walking areas and sprayed land
• Never fully strip a stand – leave a third standing

Gathering: what German nature conservation law allows

Anyone may carefully take wild herbs, flowers and fruits in small quantities for personal use from places not subject to an access ban (Section 39(3) BNatSchG). Protected areas often have stricter bans, and specially protected species have their own rules.

Sources

• Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG): § 39, accessed 5 Oct 2026

The sources support individual statements in this article. The organisations named have neither reviewed nor endorsed it.