Fascinated by herbal foraging since an early age, I finally got a chance to take a course in regional wildcrafting. With glee, Jack and I learned to add ground chickory root to our coffee, scooped up dandelions and violets for wine, and chowed down on our overgrown hosta border.

That’s right, hostas are delicious, when you get the little rolled up bit early on or in the center of a new plant. Jack particularly loved them, and since it’s hard to get him to eat greens, I went back out for a second round the next day.

Here’s the thing: foraging requires extreme and constant caution. There are no guesses in the wild; there are plant ID apps, books, more experienced foragers, and a few tell-tale signals. Opposite leaves versus staggered on the stem; whether the stem has tiny hairs and is round versus smooth and square; harvesting root versus flower; these can literally be the difference between life and death. That’s why newbie foragers love dandelions; it’s one of the few, the friendly with all-safe parts and no toxic twin.

I was being careful; I read up on which parts of the hosta were edible, what cautions indicated if you had any medical conditions, all that. And then I reached down in my safe, simple home garden, across the thin wooden barrier separating flower beds, and plucked a lily of the valley.

Because it was my garden, you know? A space that belonged to me with casual confidence that dulled a thousand safeguards. Like being among friends in an Internet community when an innocuous comment suddenly splinters the group, because someone takes it out of context into a personal fight. Or turning right near your house without that second glance up the cross street; you’re on home turf and a pick-up couldn’t possibly be bearing down on you.

Feeling snug and safe at home, I did what I would NEVER do in the wild. This is how my husband wound up eating half a lily of the valley leaf, a plant so toxic that two leaves can kill.

You don’t know fear until you think you’ve poisoned your husband. First, you enjoy his company and don’t want to harm him. Second, your mind flies to how awkward the funeral will be if you are the inadvertent cause of his death.

I spent the evening with a list of LOTV poisoning symptoms pulled up on my phone, watching Jack like the proverbial tiger-mother-hawk. We agreed that one bite was not enough to deal with the drama of calling for help; we prefer to eschew such scenes. We would be vigilant on how we felt, and I would never make that on-the-ground mistake again, but we also weren’t going to give that tiny plant more scare power than it deserves. Identify, avoid, move on.

Since the dawn of time, gardens have been notorious for one internal bad apple spoiling the whole scene. Will this lapse keep me from the joys of foraging, discovering new friends in the plant world, getting to know their professional powers and personal beauties? Not on your life. Is it going to make me super cautious about believing in safe spaces? Oh yes.

Jack is doing well. He didn’t have any side effects at all. My heart raced all night. Shocker.