Wildcrafter

Darla Kroft

Sometimes we must reach backward in time to walk forward with intention. Reviving forgotten culinary plants, honoring native species, and celebrating the underutilized is not just a passion, it has become my mission. These plants sustained communities for centuries, cultivated through practices that were often more ecologically attuned than many modern systems. By reintroducing them to our gardens and our communities, we unlock pathways to a more sustainable, rooted future.
Whether you're interested in growing new plants or discovering fresh flavors to add to your plate, you’ll find new old plants to grow, taste, and share. My classes offer an introduction to these plants and a way to reconnect with their past and with our past. Together, we’ll unearth practical ways to bring them back into our gardens, our kitchens, and our communities.

To walk into my future, I had to reach back into my past. I grew up in rural Indiana, tending large family gardens and preserving seasonal harvests that shaped my understanding of garden flavors, plant cycles, and soil’s quiet potential. In high school, I took every agricultural class I could find. But when I left for college, I left the gardens behind.
After college, I taught at Outdoor Education centers before moving into the corporate world; then into academia. When the COVID pandemic hit, I planted a small culinary herb garden and rediscovered what I can only call “soil tranquility”: the feel of bare toes in warm earth, the joy of soil-stained fingernails, and the scent of sun-warmed, dark, rich loam.
That garden didn’t stay small for long. I soon began farming at a local cooperative, growing culinary plants long overlooked by gardeners and farmers. Today, I actively seek out and cultivate underutilized, native, and forgotten crops - not as curiosities, but as keys to diversifying our diets, reimagining our gardens, and reconnecting with sustainable practices of the past.