How many of the herbs you use come from your own back garden or the local hedgerows? Have you ever tried garlic mustard pesto, homemade blackberry wine, dandelion or nettle soup? If the answer to either of those questions was no, then the next logical question is would you be interested in harvesting and using wild herbs, and if not, why are you reading this?
If the answer to those questions was yes, and you want to try your hand at using the wonderful seasonal bounty that Mother Nature provides, then if you’re a beginner to wildcrafting for food, before continuing reading this, now would be a good time to read the Wildcrafting – A Beginners Guide To Herb & Wild Flower Identification post on the Herbal Haven blog.
If you’ve already done that, and you’ve done all your research and have the basic kit required, then you’re ready to begin trying your hand at finding and harvesting mother natures bounty for use in your kitchen. I consider a basic kit to be a pair of rubber gloves (to protect hands from things like nettle stings and staining from blackberries. A pair of secatours, some plastic bags or boxes to store your bounty, a field guide and a camera to take photos of plants you are not sure of for future reference.
There are many wild herbs and plants that grow locally in Derbyshire, but you’ll also find the majority of them growing around the country. However things like Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) which I can be seen harvesting above to make a delicious spring Pesto may not grow locally to you. An easy way to discover what does grow locally is to check the Postcode Plant Database run by the National History Museum. By entering the first part of your postcode you will generate a list of all the local flora in your area. From there you can look the plants up and make notes of the edible ones and document a way of identifying them before you go out.
If you take photos of plants that are not familiar to you and pay attention to details such as the leaf shape, the type of stem, number of flowers, height etc then you can use some of the online plant identifiers to identify your mystery plant. As well as my trusted wild flower/herb/plant books, I also use Botanical Society of the British Isles Flora Search index and the BioImages – Virtual Field Guide this guide also lists fauna as well and is a very useful reference.
When using a field guide ALWAYS make sure you know exactly what you’re picking and NEVER pick anything if you’re not 110% certain what the plant is, it’s also important to know whether the plant is protected under the law and be certain that you are not trespassing. With a little knowledge you can harvest some wonderful food for free not far from your own doorstep cutting out air miles, with the added bonus that you’ll be eating fresh seasonal food. We’re almost into February now, near me, fresh young Nettles are poking their way through the ground ready to be turned into soup, steamed and made into beer and wine.
The best times of year for me as far as seasonal wild food goes are spring amd autumn, in spring there are dandelion, garlic mustard, nettles, cleavers, chickweed, elderflower, wild garlic and bistort are my favourites. In autumn its the turn of the trees and shrubs to offer up their bounty, elderberries, blackberries, sloes, crab apples, rowan berries and a new wild friend discovered last autumn sweet chestnuts. In the summer I stumble upon wild marjoram, wild basil, wild fennel and pineapple weed amongst other herbs, all get used in the kitchen.
I always take my identification books on holiday with us so I can take advantage of new things discovered, last year in France I found Hottentot figs, rather a sharp taste but very fruity, and an abundance of sweet juicy wild strawberries. On trips to Cornwall I’ve tucked into Alexanders stems dripping in melted butter and in Wales I sampled the delights of Sea Purslane, salty but tasty. There’s always something to find in the wilds and hedgerows if you know what you’re looking for. So what grows local to you and what do you eat from the wild?
