Beginners Foraging - Where when and how!

I thought that It would be a good idea to start a brand new thread for beginner and more experienced foragers, to share advice on some of the easier to identify food availabe for free!

Maybe it wouldnt be a good idea to include anything which is rare or difficult to distinguish from something potentially poisonous, as this thread is for novices like myself.

Only things which are widely available, easily identifiable, and perfectly safe to eat without complicated processes.

A link to a photo, a brief description about where it is usually found (including what grows near and around), and ideas on how to cultivate it in your own garden (if feasible) would all be very helpful!

Please add any other suggestions to anything mentioned above!
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So, I will start with what I consider to be a fairly simple to find vegetable

The Stinging Nettle



Stinging nettles are found everywhere, from woodlands, to verges. You probably have some in your own garden!

Make sure your wearing gloves when you pick them because of their stinging hairs. Using gloves, pick the younger leaves from the top of the plant before the plant has began flowering and setting seed, as gritty particles develop after flowering/seed setting which irritate the urinary tract.

Make sure you wash and cook before you eat them to prevent the occurance of stinging in the mouth. Cooking will remove the stinging chemicals from the plant.

 

Glad you said that about not eating after they flowered You could cut a patch down in June to get new growth, this benefits catterpillars that depend on them too.

The wild garlic we were talking about in the other thread is pretty easy to ID, but just to be on the safe side, there are a few things that grow in the same habitat at the same time of year.



Arum Lilly (Think its Arum Maculatum ) Has Arrow shaped leaves & has too much starch in the tuber. Elizabethans used it to stiffen their Ruffs.

Lilly of the valley & Dogs Mercury are poisonous too. But, as has been said, if its pale green,almost translucent with lanceolate leaves & smells of garlic, then its more than likely garlic.
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As Scrungee mentioned, many old recipes called for a gallon of Cowslip flowers, we wouldn't want to do that today, so use primula flowers instead. Our cultivated forms are easy enough to grow.

Dandelions are dead easy to ID as Luke has pointed out. The leaves are quite bitter so if you get the chance now, before the spring flush, upend a clay flowerpot over a few, cover the drainage holes & try a few blanched (oh, this makes them vulnerable to slug attack, once the bitterness has gone so include some organic slug pellets)

The same can be done with Alexanders, but we wont recommend umbellifers for beginers as there are some fatal ones in that family.

 

Rosehips are good.

wiki rosehips

More for a drink than as food, although apparently you can make jam with them. I sometimes gather a few, you don't need that many (about 1kg is enough), boil them until soft, mash them, then strain off the liquid. Add a bit of sugar if you're so inclined, and bottle it up. Use it like cordial, ie dilute it with cold water, and it makes a refreshing drink. I don't know of anything that looks similar, and in any case if you skin gets ripped to bits as you're harvesting them then its a safe bet you're messing with a wild rose bush. They're generally to be found in hedgerows and woodland edges.

 

Good one Dave

Rose hips


Devils turnips are also red & hang in vines from the autumn hedgerows but make yourself familiar with the rose hips. The hips contain seeds bedded in "itching powder" which needs to be strained out with a muslin cloth.

I make rosehip syrup to see us thru the dark, vitamin c less days of winter. Makes a great milkshake [hr]
Oh, forgot to say, they are best bletted (softened by the first frosts) and definately best before the Fieldfares come over from Scandinavia & eat the lot.[hr]
:DOH:

Devils turnips are the other Bryony :DOH:

http://www.brickfieldspark.org/data/blackbryony.htm

Just have a look there, its easier.

 

Planting Sea Kale.


The seeds have a thick pithy coating, which I presume has evolved so the seeds can float away with the tides & find another part of the beach to colonise.



I removed the coating, each one contains a large single seed, put 8 in a tray of compost & put them in a cold frame to germinate.

 

Looks like an interesting foodstuff. Is this something you have done recently?

Would love to see what happens when they germinate.

 

Yep, did it today Luke, doing it to keep your interest up in all things foragey

You have an enquiring mind and that must be encouraged. You are the planets future young Jedi.

 

Well thank you master ziggy.

I guess the question is, how difficult is it to get hold of these seeds. Our nearest coast is in lincolnshire (about 2 hours drive) and unless im really misguided, im assuming thats the best place to find it near me :WINK1:

Next time we have a day out, i'll keep my eyes open... only, what does it look like when gone to seed?

Young padewan needs teaching he does.

 

The answer was in the previous posts young paduwan.



Look well along the coasts or otherwise pm me & i'll post you some seeds

 

In all my years, I've never seen anything like that down our beach, up on the north east coast.

Does it actually grow on the beach or in the sea and then get washed up?

 

It grows usually just above the intertidal zone Dave. We have lots of them on the south coast.

Brought a good picking of the leaves back to mums kitchen once, she cooked them all up at once & got cross that we didnt eat them all at once.

 

I've never seen it Zig. I wonder if it is choosy about the sand it grows in. Round here the sand is quite coarse down to quite a depth, whereas I know on some beaches it is more like mud if you go down about a foot.

Could it also be about the temperature? It will be a bit warmer down south, especially the south west as you get the gulf stream bringing the warm water over.

Next time I go to the tees estuary I'll have a look there. The sand there is quite different to the main beach, and the water is warmer too. You get a lot of shell fish down there too but nobody dare eat it because its probably contaminated from all the industry on the banks of the tees.

 

It might not grow where you are Dave, come to think of it, I don't remember seeing it on the North Somerset coast either & that is more mud than shingle. It was very common until it got poplier with the victorians. It was nearly wiped out as wild plants were picked to supply the London markets.

From what you describe, your coast may be the habitat of something even nicer, Marsh Samphire. Not to be confused with normal Samphire, a fleshy umbellifer(also edible, with a strong aniseed flavour)

Marsh Samphire looks like a cactus & grows in the intertidal zone on muddy estuaries.

Click here for picture

Look from July onwards, snip out the central stalk, leaving the side shoots to set seed. Boil for 10 mins, dip in butter & suck the flesh off of the woody stems.

Delicious.