FOOD FROM THE WILD

A journey around the edible hedgerows at The Old Kennels (from September 2010 forage guided by Robin Harford)

Blackberries
we have an abundance of this simple delight, perfect to nibble on walks, wonderful with apples in pies!

Bracken
Best avoided due to carcinogens in leaf spores

Broad Leaved Plantain
Edible leaf, or use seeds dried

Burdock
Has a two year life cycle in the first Autumn & spring of second year you can dig the root as a delicacy.

Campion
Red,White or bladder campion have edible leaves best harvested in spring

Chickweed
Medicinal plant with white flower and tiny leaf

Cow Parsley
A wonderful herby salad leaf, slightly hairy, smells of carrot tops – be careful with all Umbilifers, you need to be an experienced forager to ensure you make a correct identification, they can be dangerous.

Creeping Field Thistle
Peel the stalk and eat raw… top tip – wear gloves and use a knife and fork!

Dock
Familiar plant to counteract a nettle sting, young leaf can be eaten, bitter and not great, but can be boiled, stuffed and fried to good effect. The curly/wavy leaved dock tastes lemmony.

Elder
Berries are a little pippy, but good for jam (better strained to jelly) and both berries and flowers are excellent for wine!

Garlic Mustard (Jack by the Hedge)
Lovely salad leaf, seed can be collected for spice and root can be ground to make a wasabi

Golden Leaved Saxifrage
With its opposite pairs of leaves and tiny hairs on the top of leaves, this is best enjoyed after it has seeded.

Ground Elder
Well we have lots of this, mainly in the cultivated vegetable garden! Hard to eradicate, so leaves best enjoyed in a salad (or cooked).

Ground Ivy
(or Alehoof, Cat’s foot, Creeping Charlie,Gill-over-the-ground,
Gillrun, Hay maids, hedge maids)
High in vitamin C this medicinal plant used to be considered a panacea (cure all) it was also used instead of hops to make ale (hence the name Ale Hoof)

Hawthorn
Tree with red ‘Haws’ known as ‘Bread and Cheese’ medicinal berry used in heart problems. High in pectin so makes good jelly.

Heartstongue Fern
This fern has a ribbed back, it was an Elizabethan food plant and fiddleheads can be double boiled and sauteed or cooked in wood ash and warm water and strained. It is however a fern nd it just may be carcinogenic, so possibly best avoided.

Herb Robert
With its pink flowers from April to December this is a medicinal plant with many uses from insect repellent to treatment for head lice!

Hogweed Flower

Hogweed Leaf
This is similar to Hemlock and extreme caution should be exercised to ensure you know the difference as Hemlock is extremely poisonous – toxic umbilifers are HAIRLESS and smooth and should not be eaten. Hogweed however has hairs and striped seeds when you find the dried flower heads which have a wonderful spicy cardamom taste. Leaves can be eaten.
Hogweed Seed

King Alfred’s Cakes
Not edible as far as I know, but make good firelighters
Lungwort
( Spotted lungwort , Jerusalem cowslip, oak lungs, lung moss, spotted comfrey, oak lungs)
A medicinal herb used in the treatment of respiratory problems

Nettle
A superfood, high in vitamin C, a good source of protein, the seeds produce oil, make soups, cordial, tea, use cooked as a vegetable. The nettle is a fabulously versatile plant and can be spun as fibre for making fabric, used to make paper, as a food source and is a wonderful wildlife host, grossly underrated!

Pink Yarrow
A medicinal herb with white or purple flowers, great for salads, vinegars. Mugwort and Yarrow flowers with honey and water can make a wonderful mead.

Pennywort (Navalwort)
The bigger the leaf the sweeter the taste, this is a lovely crisp salad ingredient, if doesn’t lend itself to being cooked as it has a membrane which doesn’t break down well.

Red Clover
A great addition to salads, easily recognisable and pretty flowers for garnish

Ribwort Plantain
Wonderful mushroom flavour, young leaves can be used in salads and even use instead of a dock leaf for nettle stings. Break across the leaf to reveal ribs.

Rose Hips
For tea and Jellies (I also remember making itching powder as a child!)
Rowan (Mountain Ash)
Good for jellies
Sloe
For sloe Gin of course! What else!

Smooth Sow Thistle
A medicinal herb for fevers and high blood pressure, with yellow flowers this thistle is quite common. leaves are excellent in risotto.

Sorrel
This is similar to Lords and Ladies (poisonous plant), so use caution and look for the groove up the front of the stalk of the sorrel (and check it doesn’t have a border around the leaf as the poisonous woodland plant Lords and Ladies does). Use sorrel leaf to remove rust stains in linen, roots can be dried and ground to make noodles.
Stitchwort
Edible flowers and leaves.

Vetch
Dainty leaves and stalk tastes fresh and very like pea shoots
Violet
Leaves and flower are edible.

Wild Mint
For sauces, in salads, so many uses I cant list!

Wood Avens (Herb Bennet)
Eat this fried in butter for a crispy seaweed type dish, the root smells of germaline (well clove!) it can be used as a clove substitute and also hung in the wardrobe to repel moth.

Wood Sorrel
Woodland plant with edible leaves

With thanks to Robin Harford for sharing his extensive working knowledge of all things edible on this fascinating day, including a wonderfully tasty lunch using our gatherings at the end of the day!

NONE OF THE ABOVE SHOULD BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION, OR ADVICE, THIS IS SIMPLY MY RECORD OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN ON OUR LAND!

It is also very important to forage respectfully, just take what you need to eat and leave plenty.