Easing back into the real world…

I’m in Somerset this week, at Ki-Aikido summer school. The class schedule is relaxed enough that I’ve been able to get out and about a little bit. I haven’t done huge amounts of foraging while I’ve been here – about a pound of plums the other day that were hanging over a car park in Highbridge, and the odd handful of blackberries from beside the various lanes. Lots of things are starting to ripen nicely, and I expect I’ll have plenty to harvest when I get back to London if it hasn’t all been rained away.

Things to watch for, at least in the south of England, in the next few weeks:

• Hazelnuts–ideally you want to get this when they’re just starting to ripen, if you wait until they’re properly ripe then the squirrels will have the lot.
• Mulberries–these are planted as ornamental trees, usually, but the fruit is quite edible once it gets dark. It doesn’t keep at all so you need to either eat it, juice it, freeze it or jam it the same day you pick it. Personally I tend to eat it straight away.
• Walnuts are getting big now and, just like the hazelnuts, if you want to eat them instead of letting the squirrels take them all, you’ll have to get there quickly.
• Elderberries–some people find that there are laxative effects from eating these raw, although personally I’ve never had a problem with the odd handful. They make good wine, good jam and good juice or syrup. I’ve even had elderberry port, although to be fair I didn’t make it myself.
• Grapes are also quite common as ornamentals and can range from deliciously sweet to rather too tart for eating.
• Apples! Some won’t be ready yet but it’s difficult to tell this year as the weather has been quite odd.
• Blackberries, of course.
• Fennel seeds when they start to ripen, which may be pretty soon. You can use them as a condiment, or sprout them.
• Various other seeds – hedge garlic, rocket, shepherd’s purse and various other wild brassicas are good for sprouting.
• Poppy seeds are edible and have a nice nutty flavour, although collecting any great quantity from the wild can be daunting.

That’s probably all from me until after I’m back to London, unless I find something really spectacular that warrants a post of its own.

Foraging Log 8

Time: Perhaps 90 minutes on a weekday evening
Place: Mudchute Park and Farm
Gathered: A good handful of blackberries and 600g plums (mostly yellow with some red ones mixed in).

This was an ad-hoc foraging session; two friends and I were walking back from somewhere else and couldn’t resist looking around. We stopped because it was getting too dark to forage, I’m sure there would have been more plums hiding if we’d covered a few more paths. Also we would have managed more if we’d had a chair to stand on. We also saw loads of hazelnuts, which are huge this year though not yet ripe. When they just start to ripen is the time to pick them, wait any longer and the squirrels will have the entire lot. I should really plan better, I was wearing sandals and got stung by nettles quite a bit.

Foraging Log 6

Time: about 90 minutes, but this included lots of walking around
Place: Southwark Park, Bermondsey
Gathered: 10 lingering Saskatoon berries. About 1.5kg of cherries, not counting the ones that ended up in my tummy as I was picking.

Southwark Park has more in it than I had suspected, and I will be returning there. The cherries are excellent – juicy and sweet. When I pick cherries, I always taste a few from each tree, because there are so many different varieties and some of them taste better than others. One tree had large, dark, juicy cherries on it, but on tasting they were so bitter I decided not to gather those ones after all.

There are several Turkish Hazel (Corylus colurna) trees; I will be going back for their nuts later in the year. I also look forward to sampling some of the plums around. There is a walnut tree – I think it is the Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), also known as the “No, you won’t get this open without a sledgehammer” walnut. I may stick to the easier-to-open Persian (aka English) walnuts that I know of, instead, but if I miss them it’s nice to know there will be a source that the squirrels haven’t been able to decimate. Although I don’t much like them I’m quite pleased to have found blackcurrants. They aren’t in very good condition, I think the lack of rain in April and the abundance of it in June has confused them a bit.

Cherries! What to do with 1.5kg of them? Some were mixed with ground almonds and a bit of golden syrup, and used as a filling for sweet croissants. I stewed the rest and have been eating them with yoghurt, with ice cream, just on their own… I may well try cooking them some more to remove moisture and making a fruit spread. I’d really like to have a dehydrator to dry some with – I’m sure if I go back in the next few days there will be more – but that is not part of my current equipment stock. I might try doing some of them in a low oven, though, when it looks like I’ll be home long enough.