WILD PLANT FORAGING

There’s lots of exciting foraging opportunities here in Winderemere as elsewhere. There’s a book you can refer to in the sitting room, and some expert foragers offering online information, including www.eatweeds.co.uk and www.wildfooduk.com.

 

Obviously it’s something you’ll do ‘at your own risk’ and you need to check that you can properly identify the plants you are picking; and all is best in moderation.  Even for beginners, there’s plenty of easily identifiable plants to find locally on a walk up School Knott or through Common Wood to Orrest Head. We’ve even found wild garlic, jack-by-the-hedge, nettles and water mint by the stream on the right side of Queen’s Park, literally a couple of minutes’ walk away. Here’s what we have found in Windermere during spring and summer in 2018. There’s lots more still waiting to be discovered. We will add to this over the seasons. Please look up each of these yourselves, in the book or online.

 

Remember to only take what you need, so there’s plenty for everyone including the insects. You are welcome to borrow scissors and bags to use on your forays. Have a wild time, and bon appetit.

 

Early Spring foraging

• Ramsons/Wild garlic, growing profusely in the woods. Use instead of garlic in cooking or salads or add to other greens you are cooking. Make a delicious pesto with Jack-by-the-Hedge and nettles too.

• Dandelions: in Queen’ Park outside the back of the house, and everywhere you go during mid Spring

• Nettles: Wear some gloves when you are cutting them, using mainly the top 4-6 leaves. Pour nearly-boiled water on top for a refreshing tea that can abate hay-fever suffering. Or make a soup, using a couple of handfuls of nettles, wild garlic and some potatoes and leeks too. After they’ve flowered the chemical constituents change so nettles are best left for the insects 😉

• Jack-by-the-Hedge/garlic mustard. At its tastiest early spring, after which it’s a bit bitter. Use the leaves in salads or cook with them.

• Wood sorrel:  a low growing clover-like plant with a delicate lemony taste. You can eat the leaves and flowers

• Common Hogweed: go for the baby shoots where the leaves haven’t opened; don’t confuse with giant hogweed.

• Ground elder, use mainly the shiny new shoots. Quite a strong taste so perhaps treat like a herb.

• Lady’s Smock/Cuckooflower is something I’ve seen in the meadows but didn’t know it was edible at the time.

 

Later Spring foraging

• Wild water mint (growing in streams), tastes like peppermint, lovely in tea or salads.

• Ramsons/Wild garlic, are still available as are their flowers which are delicious and peppery

• Red Clover is easy to find in the meadows. Drink as a tea or put in salads.

• Elderflower: pick these scented flowers to make drinks or add to salads.

• Red clover: low growing, pink/purple flowers, tasty in salads

 

Summer foraging

• Pineapple weed seems to like growing in very dry gravelly ground. Flowers are edible on their own or in salads before they flower and become bitter. Also good as a tea, like chamomile.

• Blackberries – who hasn’t enjoyed foraging for blackberries? A childhood favourite to revisit.

• Lots of other berries are ready in the summer; please research them to check out what you’re picking.

• Plantain is even growing among the slate chippings in the garden. Not especially tasty but can be chewed then applied to insect bites or stings for effective relief.

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