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 7

Time: Perhaps 2 hours
Place: New River Path, Islington, from Essex Road to Canonbury station.
Gathered: A handful or two of lemon balm, some walnuts for pickling, and a few early-but-edible apples

A friend asked me to arrange some foraging as she was going to be in town, so I did. I had some difficulty choosing a location but decided on the New River Path because there is quite a variety of plants there and also because I had promised to point out Amelanchier alnifolia. It’s also quite handy for getting to the Pembury Tavern, which has good food and good beer and, on this occasion, also had Morris dancers.

There were quite a few of us – 6 or 7. I pointed out many of the plants I could identify, and some I couldn’t. It was hot and sunny and we were glad of the shade provided by the trees. We gathered some lemon balm near the beginning. The wild strawberries were pretty much past eating so we left them well alone; edible weeds in a vacant carpark behind a closed branch of MECCA weren’t looking particularly healthy so they were left. Many lovely walnuts were picked from the walnut tree, though, and the little red heart-shaped apples are nearly ripe.

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.

Foraging Log 3

Time: About ninety minutes on a Friday evening
Place: New River Path, Islington, N1, from Essex Road to St. Paul’s Road.
Gathered: nothing, because I wasn’t really hungry, and didn’t have a sensible way to carry anything
Other notables: I saw a heron!

Islington is where I was living in 2004, just before I started getting seriously interested in foraging. It was interesting to re-visit my old stomping-ground, and view it through more educated eyes. Islington doesn’t have a lot of green space, but the space that exists is very pleasant.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), with its mint-like leaves and fresh scent, was the first edible I spotted on this particular walk. It does make a lovely tea. This was soon followed by a real treasure – wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca)! I’ve not seen them in London before now, so I was quite pleased. I didn’t pick any, though. As I kept walking I saw a fair amount of feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), as well as violets growing on ornamental rocks.

A churchyard contained fenced-off areas of “bog garden” – I think they’ll need more rain to get established properly, but at least the gardener is trying to give them a chance. There was also a healthy walnut tree, and something that is some sort of peach. The fruits were green and hard and fuzzy. I will definitely be going back later in the year for closer investigation! Unfortunately that tree did not look terribly healthy, though whether the problem is one of old age or disease I cannot tell.

Across Canonbury Road, then, and into the area of the path where there is actually some “river”. The New River is now a very slow-moving stream, thick with algae. I saw a huge heron, although of course I do not eat those, and several ducks. One of the plants I remember from previous explorations of the New River Path is also looking like it should provide well this year. This is a variety of apple, I’m not sure which, that produces small, heart-shaped apples, pink and sweet, with a line of darker pink in their flesh partway in. There are three or four of these spread through the park from Canonbury Road to St. Paul’s Road, and I always mean to go back in apple season and get some, as they would look fantastic dried.

I also saw several roses which will produce lovely hips, white valerian amongst a patch of ivy, a second probably-peach tree, a few stands of bamboo, a lone Saskatoon berry tree, various planted ornamental herbs, and more willow than you could shake a stick at.

Further on again, after crossing a bridge, I found a few bushes that I’ve not yet identified. I cannot decide whether they might be cloudberries or salmonberries. The fruits resemble cloudberries more, but the flowers are pink rather than white, like salmonberries. I didn’t eat any – I never do if I don’t know what something is – but I will be going back to have a closer look.

All along the stream, on the other side of course, were plenty of elder trees and blackberries. There were a few on the accessible side too.

Near the exit at St. Paul’s Road there was a rather magnificent fennel plant, and various ornamental herbs, some of which I believe must be related to tansy. It was starting to get dark at this point, and I didn’t really want to hang around on my own trying to identify plants in poor light.

Foraging Log 1

Time: 1 hour on a Sunday afternoon
Place: Hendon Park
Gathered: None, but not for lack of abundance.

This slow amble around Hendon Park on a day of mixed cloud and sun was undertaken to kill time between other commitments. Little tiny proto-walnuts are beginning to form on the walnut tree. I also had another look at a tree I haven’t identified yet, which has small, hard green fruits. I think it may be Arbutus unedo, also known as a “strawberry tree” – I’ve seen these in gardens in this part of London. If that’s what it is, I look forward to sampling the fruit when it ripens.

Several trees have been removed from the perimeter of the park, but it does seem that they are being replaced elsewhere. Still, I shall miss the two hawthorn trees that had haws the size of small crab-apples! The grass was freshly mown as well, so there wasn’t as much in the way of greens at the edges as there often is in this particular park. I did see one bunch of mushrooms, but they were in poor condition and my phone battery died before I could take a picture.

Elderflower is still doing nicely, and I hope to get on with making champagne this week. I also found a Saskatoon berry tree (Amelanchier alnifolia, although it could be another Amelanchier species) that I hadn’t noticed before, to add to the two already in the park. Those berries will be ripening sometime in the next few weeks, and once they do that they’ll disappear very quickly to the birds.

It is unfortunate that most of the plum trees in Hendon Park have peach leaf curl disease, which leads to withered, premature fruit no good for eating. The cherries are doing better, but I don’t think many will be spared by the birds, and I do know of sweeter, larger cherry varieties elsewhere in London.

The only other thing of note is that a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) in one of the private gardens has cones on. I may just work up the nerve to ask if I could have one when they ripen.