Category: foraging
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Magnolia & Maple Blossom Munchies Mid-March
This week I found Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) in full bloom, its zingy lime-yellow blossoms looking like they’d been dyed with fluorescent marker pen. Maple blossoms, apart from Sycamore, are edible and taste like peas. Yum! Norway Maple has leaves much larger than our native Field Maple (Acer campestre). Norway Maple has 7 pointed lobes,…
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Make Ground Elder Soup
This week I’ve been down to the riverside to check on the carpets of Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria). Spoiler alert: it’s not Elder (Sambucus sps). It is, however, very tasty and nutritious. It was brought over as a pot herb by the Romans, and left here to ravage our gardens with its invasive nature ever…
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Stinging Nettles
Everyone knows Stinging Nettles, they’re everywhere in the UK. They’re a menace, but they’re really good for you, especially for women. Stinging Nettles make amazing compost for the garden, a nutritious feed for farm animals, and have even been used to make fabric in the past! Trust me, if you’re eating it, the stems are…
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Wild Garlic
Now you’ve got to be careful of this one. Wild garlic is bloody lovely, but it’s also very similar in appearance to lily of the valley. A poisonous plant. In all honesty, I don’t really go with wild garlic these days, simply because I find it really easy to grow my own garlic and spring…
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Cleaver
Cleavers are bloody brilliant, I pick them every year to make my own multivitamin. I read the other year that, because they don’t count as a food and they don’t count as medicine, the multivitamins you get at the shop aren’t well regulated. So you’re downing pills, thinking it’ll strengthen you, but in reality it…
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Brooklime
Another cool plant to find! Cute little purple-blue flowers to reflect the water it’s often found near. It’s usually found near watercress, and it’s used in a similar way: soups and salads. It’s rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, is a diuretic, and an expectorant. It’s another plant that can help keep scurvy at bay…
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Herb Bennett
Another fascinating plant that I really want to try. It grows in the woods and, like Herb Robert, it’s a decent insect repellent. I want to see what the smell is like in comparison, as Herb Robert’s a bit strong. So the bits of Herb Bennett that you use are the leaves and roots. They’re…
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No More Fly Agaric
This was last November, I was gutted to see the Fly Agaric season was over. Note to all foragers: aim for September. In October they go maggoty, and by November they’re turning to mush.
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Further Experiments With Fly Agaric
I was so determined to learn more about Fly Agaric, that I asked a friend to pick some for me. He was kind and did so, and I was so excited to study it further. The problem was, the season was done. In the time it took for him to pass them to me and…
