Eat Wild!

eat WILD!

eat WILD!

eatwild.org.uk Brought to you by The Association of Foragers, an International group of professional foragers, including foraging educators, authors, herbalists and harvesters. foragers-association.org The title Eat Wild is used with permission of Duncan Mackay, author of a book with the same name. udderdishbeeleaf.com.

The font Majesti Banner is by Joe Prince.

Welcome to the first edition of Eat Wild!, a foraging zine which enables and inspires you to do exactly that. We have all had our movements restricted by the lockdown and most of us are spending a lot more time at home than usual. So this zine follows the theme of home as a place - house, garden and the local environment - especially the little bits of ground where plants grow. We have all needed to find new reserves of resilience over the past weeks, and wild plants are often tough, growing with the slightest encouragement. However difficult life becomes, there is some good news - there are delicious, nutritious and even medicinal plants waiting to be discovered somewhere near where you live, and we have the recipes (page 10) to help you enjoy them.

What's good now? warning The carrot

family, to which ground elder belongs, has some really poisonous plants with similar, umbrellashaped flowers. Be extra careful when harvesting.

Check the leaves. Don't eat hemlock (leaves like cow parsley) or hemlock water dropwort (leaves like flat leaf parsley). warning Chickweed can be mistaken for toxic scarlet pimpernel which has square stems and red flowers. Chickweed has round stems and white flowers.

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Wood sorrel (Oxalis)

Ground elder

what Toothed leaves, usually in groups of five. where Woodland edges, parks and gardens. how to use Young shoots taste like raw carrot and parsley. Perfect with fish and chicken. Chop larger stalks and use in a crunchy, coleslaw-type salad, or as a base for soup or pasta sauce.

Leaves can be used chopped as a herb and added to dishes just before serving.

Chickweed

what Round stems with a row of white hairs on the side. Flowers have five white petals, each petal has a little notch. where Bare, sunlit soil. how to use Wonderful as salad or greens. It’s delicious - fresh and slightly sweet.

Wild strawberry what Tiny strawberries.

where Slightly sunny spots on verges, edges of gardens and woods. how to use Delicious plucked straight from the plant.

what Similar to clover, but the three leaflets of each leaf are heart, not tear-shaped. where Forms large carpets in woods. Other Oxalis species grow in gardens – many escape and go wild. On dry ground, and in cracks in the pavement. how to use Oxalis species have a lovely lemony flavour, great in salads and sandwiches or as a delicious garnish for sweet or savoury dishes.

PHOTOS: ROBERT FLOGAUS-FAUST, SIMON LH64, WAFERBOARD, SARAH WATSON, GEOGRAPH , SIMON RIGBY

June

Lots of wild plants are considered weeds, springing up on verges or through cracks in the pavement. Our plant of the month, elderflower (page 6) is a small 'weed tree’ which grows without being planted, anywhere it can get a foothold. We do our best to point you to the wild food you can most easily find, and show you how to enjoy it in really simple ways. We even point you to some garden plants (page 4) which have edible bits. Foraging is something that we do to remind ourselves we are part of wild nature; it enables us to become part of the lifecycle of the place where we live - our home.

With that in mind, we want you to meet the foragers (page 9). Discover who they learnt from, what got them interested, and what they do now. To get your wild child (page 12) following in their footsteps, we have some foraging games and puzzles. A fun break from all the home schooling.

Miles Irving, Editor

SAFE FORAGING

Ribwort plantain is often found growing in grass.

Plantains can be cooked in a low oven like kale chips.

Linden or lime

Mallow

Fat hen

what The leaves are

hand-shaped; round with blunt, angular points and a purplish dot in the centre. where In dry, sunny places such as path edges, hedge banks, verges, scrub and waste ground. how to use Use it like spinach, e.g. for breakfast with scrambled eggs, or chop the leaves into salad.

In Morocco it is added to lamb casserole (tagine).

Ribwort and greater plantain

what Easy to recognise by the clear, parallel lines going from top to bottom of the leaves.

The tiny flowers appear in dense clusters on tall stems. where On grass and in other sunny, dry places. how to use Chop leaves finely and add to salads and stir-fries for a nice crunch – they taste of mushrooms!

what Closely related to spinach and quinoa. The leaves are diamondshaped and the surface appears as if dusted with fine powder. where On sunlit, bare soil, waste ground, hedgerows and gardens. how to use Delicious salad or green vegetable – the leaves can be used just like you would spinach. They have a soft texture and a lovely creamy flavour. Like quinoa, they contain a lot of protein and calcium.

what Bright green, heart-shaped leaves.

Lime trees are food for many types of moth, and loved by aphids, which themselves are food for birds and ladybirds. The flowers provide nectar and pollen for bees and other insects. where Often planted in parks and at roadsides. how to use The young leaves are lovelier than lettuce, in salads or as little wraps. Lime flowers can be used in tea, or to make into syrup, sorbet or ice cream.

Don’t eat any wild plant or mushroom unless you are absolutely sure what it is and that it’s safe to eat. Some are only edible when cooked and some have both edible and poisonous parts. Be aware of poisonous lookalikes for edible species.

Don't forage by busy roads where soil will be contaminated with heavy metals and avoid places where weedkiller may have been used. A forager near you can help you learn- check the Association of Foragers’ website.

FORAGING AND THE LAW

The right to forage has been enshrined in British law since at least the 13th century.

Unlike land, wild plants are common goods, not ‘property’. To avoid annoying people it’s best to forage where there are clear rights of access and with the landowner’s blessing.

Some people worry that foraging could be harmful- just reassure them that foraging plants is mostly like mowing grass- you cut them and they grow back!

eat wild! 3

There’s way more to eat in the average garden than just the veg patch. So many weeds and garden plants are edible too.

Whether in your own garden or the local park, you might be surprised how many edibles you can add into your diet. Take time to have a look at what’s right on your doorstep. These plants are everywhere.

Weeds might get a bad rap in general, but they often germinate and grow quickly, and they are effective at propagating themselves far and wide. It can be liberating to welcome these (often) edible plants and allow them to thrive. Many are attractive as well as tasty, such as red wood sorrel (page 2), 1 green alkanet flowers and 2 dog violets. 3 Hairy bittercress often pops up in garden planters and is similar to rocket for salads, or mustard-cress for eggs.

Some of the more vigorous species 4 ground elder, 5 nettle, 6 dandelion and 7 cleavers – can be kept under control by picking or trimming before they set seed.

This reduces their continued spread in the garden as well as providing delicious food to enjoy.

Nettle leaves make wonderful tea and plant-protein-rich pakora, while the green seeds can be used to make herby oatcakes.

Dandelion can be used to make dandelion flower fritters, a leafy salad or a caffeine-free ‘coffee’ from the roasted roots. Cleavers make a vibrant green juice and a cleansing tea.

Many ornamental plants growing in towns, cities and gardens have edible parts too. Did you know you can eat 8 cherry blossoms (which taste almondy) and 9 love-in-a-mist seeds (similar to nutmeg)? 10 Darwin’s barberry gives us bright-orange, sweet-and-sour flowers which can be enjoyed in salad, and bunches of blue-black berries which make excellent jam or vinegar. 11 Japanese roses have fragrant petals for syrups and turkish delight, plus fat fruits for rosehip ketchup and treacle tart.

12 Magnolia petals taste surprisingly gingery and are amazing pickled in vinegar, sugar and salt, and enjoyed with wild sushi. 13 Lilacs make beautiful cupcakes, with minced flowers added to the cake batter and the icing, and yet more blooms on top to decorate.

If you’d like to know more about what edible delights your garden might hold, a fuller list of edible garden plants, weeds and ornamentals can be found on my website.

Lisa Cutcliffe, eduliswildfood.co.uk

Garden foraging

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PHOTOS: NEIL HEPWORTH, SARAH WATSON, SAMWISEGAMGEE69, KEW, PEXELS, DAVID ANSTISS, KEILA. ILLUSTRATION: ALI IRVING

Linden Tree of the month

To me, summer means linden. The vibrant green, heart-shaped leaves and evocative, honey-scented, creamy blooms, surrounded by humming bees, make it a delightful tree to dream away a sunny day beneath.

Though some complain the smell is cloying in hot, urban environments, in the countryside it adds another layer to the rich scent that signifies summer and calls pollinators to nectar.

Linden, or lime, has a long history in Britain. Two indigenous species, smallleaved and large-leaved lime, colonised after the last ice age and a hybrid between them is commonly planted. In cities they cause a ‘sticky problem’, when sap-drunk aphids rain honeydew down onto shiny cars. However, over the last thousand years, linden has been valued across Europe as fuel, food and medicine. The tough, fibrous

Lime trees are often pollarded (cut back to make them smaller).

inner bark was used for rope and shoe making. Linden has also been central to community life: linden circles in Polish manor gardens made shady picnic spots; courts and assemblies and festive dances were held beneath German ‘village lindens’.

Winter leaf buds can be eaten, and the pale, almost translucent spring leaves make tasty additions to the forager’s diet tossed through salads, placed between slices of buttered bread or added to soups. Dried leaves or inner bark have been crushed and used to bulk out flour during times of famine.

Linden is most well-known for its honey-flavoured blossoms, which appear in June. The creamy flowers, with lime-green, leaf-like bracts, are highly

valued as a sedative tea throughout Europe and parts of Asia.

Pick them just as they burst open, then for tea infuse them, briefly, fresh or dried. For a longer brewed ‘decoction’ steep them in boiling water in a heatproof flask for 2 hours, creating a deep ruby-red coloured brew.

This elixir is a well-known remedy for insomnia and anxiety – records from France describe restless toddlers being bathed in (cooled) linden decoction to encourage sleep. The tea is good for teetotallers, its a non-alcoholic social relaxant which can ease anxious people at parties. Perhaps after lockdown you can take some friends and some elixir, and find a linden to dance round in honour of old time celebrations.

Kim Walker, handmadeapothecary.co.uk eat wild! 5

Elder

Plant of the month

Speckles of creamy, uneven flower heads with a light, carefree summer scent, the best ones always just out of reach‌ 6 eat wild!

PHOTOS: SARAH WATSON, LIAMFM, ROTTENDORF. ILLUSTRATION: ALI IRVING

The elder is a tree, sometimes a shrub, that can grow up to fifteen metres tall. The leaves are resinous and stinky, at odds with the gorgeous, cordial-smelling flowers. If not in flower, the leaves and wood will help you; older elder bark is greyish brown and knobbly, as if made of cork, but the younger branches are silvery, smooth and pimply.

Nature ensures the flowers never open all at once, so just take a few flowering bunches and leave the rest for others and wildlife.

For the best elderflower cordial, gather the flowers on a dry morning.

Find out which of your local bushes is best for cordial making: sniff the flowers first. Some will smell good, just like cordial should, and some won’t smell at all. This will affect the final flavour.

The purple-leaved garden variety, Sambucus nigra (Black Lace), has pink flower heads which make a lovely, naturally pink cordial or champagne; just substitute pink grapefruit for the lemon in the recipes.

Elderflowers and elderberries have been used as medicine for hundreds, if not thousands, of years – traditionally to treat colds and flu. Elderflowers can be dried in a dehydrator or on a very low heat in the oven with the door left slightly ajar, or spread out in a cool, dark place. Use as tea, or as a spice for cooking. Potatoes left in a bag with dried elderflowers take on their flavour, and elderflower (fresh or dried) pairs really well with chicken as a flavouring (page 10) - try adding to chicken gravy. Fresh elderflowers also make tasty additions to salads or cooked green veg such as peas, beans or cabbage.

The autumn berries should only be eaten in very small quantities raw as they are mildly toxic. Once cooked you can eat as many as you like. They make delicious jam

and fruit pie or crumble, alone or with apples. Elderberries take a bit of sweetening to make a fair comparison with other berries. A great way to use them is to make spiced elderberry cordial, which is a traditional cold, flu and cough syrup and can be drizzled over desserts.

Like most trees, elder has a number of species which make their home in it. Elder pearl (Anania coronata) is a micro moth species that spends its entire life around the elder. The caterpillars feed on the younger leaves and the adult moth can be seen flying around the tree during June and July, especially if disturbed by someone picking flowers, so keep an eye out for it. The jelly ear fungus is parasitic on elder trees – you may spot its strange ear-like jelly flaps on branches as you are picking elderflowers, and these are edible too. They can be added fresh or dried to soups.

Elderflower cordial

We once made a huge batch of elderflower cordial and a neighbour liked it so much I gave him 5 litres of the stuff. A week later he had drunk it all and came back to tell me that it healed his chest complaint, which had been hanging around for months. I asked him how he was sure it was the elderflower cordial and he just replied “I’m from a gypsy family - we know!”. This spurred me to do some research and I discovered that it has a reputation, supported by some scientific studies, for helping to heal persistent bronchial complaints.

Miles Irving, forager.org.uk

eat wild! 7

green?

Excuse me,

do you speak

When you walk out of your home onto the street, what do you see? Concrete?

Buildings? Tarmac? Other people?

How about green stuff? Wherever you are, whether in the depths of the New Forest, some Scottish glen or inner city Birmingham, I guarantee there will be green stuff. Not too far from your front door, there are probably traffic lights, and sometimes they are green. Of course, I’m really talking about living greenery, but maybe there is a reason we use the colours red and green to signal ‘stop’ and ‘go’. If you see red – real, deep red – in a world without paint, plastic, fabric dye or ink, it’s probably coming out of your body or someone else’s, in the form of blood. That’s probably a cue to stop and attend to a wound.

On the other hand, if you see green, again in the non-manufactured environment of living things, it means plants. And plants usually mean food, whether in the form of the plants themselves, or in the form of animals you might want to eat that might be eating them. Many more plants are edible than are poisonous. Green really does in many cases mean: go and eat that plant…

But how do you get to know the exceptions and the caveats? The poisonous or part-poisonous plants, and the plants that need careful processing before they are edible?

Well, it’s like this: just as people in ancient societies could not read or write but could read the landscape 8 eat wild!

for signs of food, whether in plant or animal form, our education often teaches us to read and write well enough, but leaves us illiterate when it comes to reading the edible landscape. We need someone to help us learn to speak green.

So let’s go back to the beginning.

What do you see? Really, what do you see? I invite you to take this zine with you outside, look at the first truly wild plant you find, and ask yourself the question: ‘Is this food?’

If it’s a nettle, a dandelion or a bramble (the plant that produces blackberries) you may well recognise it instantly, in which case you already speak a few words of green. If not, just stop a moment and realise: this could well be food. Or, though less likely, it could be poison. Either way, it’s pretty important to know. It’s important to add this plant to your 'green vocabulary', because then you will be one step closer to the point where the green stuff growing near where you live is revealed as (mostly) an edible larder. Remember, green in the wild world means: go and get food! Whether you live in the country or the city, if you can see green stuff that is not manufactured or planted, you are in the wild world. The trick is to get into the wild, and to get the wild into you, by noticing, gathering and eating those nettles, dandelions or blackberries – or perhaps another plant you can identify after reading this zine! Miles Irving, forager.org.uk

¡

MEET THE FORAGERS Craig Worral, Edible Leeds

Humans are, and have always been, an intrinsic part of the natural world. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans enjoyed a more harmonious relationship with nature and made it our home. Our day-to-day living was intertwined with the seasonal rhythms and cycles of the land. The land provided us with resources such as food, water, clothing, shelter, and fuel, requiring a community to hunt, gather, process, make, share and celebrate.

By its very nature, foraging requires our full sensory and physical interaction. Walking in a woodland or park is great but only engages certain senses and faculties. Ideally, we should be engaging them all.

Foraging invites us to be curious and adventurous. It invites us to venture and explore deeper into - for example - the patch of wild garlic we have found and it invites us not only to look but, to touch, smell, listen and finally (when we are 100% sure it’s safe to do so), taste. And it’s at this point we come full circle. By eating a plant from a place, the molecules of the plant which come from the soil there become part of our bodies - we have invited the wild inside us and to become us.

Whether you live in the city or the country, you can start a great wild adventure with foraging. You just need to pick up a bag, head outside and get stuck in - always remembering that you are a part of nature and not apart from nature. edible-leeds.blogspot.com

Meet more foragers and teach your kids to forage @ Foraging for Kids! on Facebook

Leanne Townsend, Wild Food Stories

PHOTOS: NEIL HEPWORTH, FEEDINGBODYANDSOUL, J. MARQUA

My foraging journey began at a young age. My Gran would take me foraging for blackberries and raspberries along the East Yorkshire coast. We’d go for wildflower walks and make perfume out of rose petals. As I grew older, my enthusiasm waned - until my husband and I moved into an old farmhouse in rural Aberdeenshire, where I discovered the golden yellow chanterelles in the local woods – a delicious mushroom growing right on my doorstep! A few years later, a friend from the Czech Republic introduced me to many other species of edible wild mushrooms which had been growing in that same woodland all along. From that day I was hooked.

A rapid learning curve began, and soon I could identify and harvest countless species of edible wild mushrooms.

More years passed and I began to dread the long wait between the end of the winter mushroom season and the beginning of the summer season. I started to pay attention to foragers on social media who gathered plants as well as fungi and soon a new passion began. I discovered the excitement not only of learning new plants and foraging for them, but the joy of creating sweet and savoury dishes with them to feed to friends and family. More importantly, I began to pay much more attention to the natural world and the plants around me. I discovered a new relationship with the plants and trees in my garden, including the beautiful old elder tree which is now a highly valued source of food every year.

After I shared my adventures on social media, people began asking me to teach them to forage. My teaching journey began by going out with small groups of friends. Soon I gathered enough confidence to teach professionally, and my business Wild Food Stories was born. The biggest reward from teaching comes from seeing people discovering the world of free food on their doorsteps. wildfoodstories.co.uk

Foraging invites us to be curious and adventurous ...to venture and explore

Craig's urban forage of the month

Edible fungus dryad's saddle grows on trees in woods and parks. The inner flesh is a lovely white colour, the underside is spongy. It has a wonderful, floury fragrance with hints of cucumber and melon. Fry slices of young specimens or soft, outer parts of older ones in a little oil until crisp and golden.

eat wild! 9

Wild chicken soup

serves 3

No wild chickens are involved in the making of this soup - it just tastes of chicken and has wild things in it! Wild elderflower pairs really well with the flavour of chicken, as does the mushroom flavour of the plantain. (Use veg stock to keep it plant-based.)

1 chicken/vegetable stock cube 1 litre water 2 medium potatoes, chopped 4 elderflower heads 4 large plantain leaves

Add the water to the pan and put it on a medium heat, crumbling in the stock cube. Bring to the boil, then add the potatoes (chopped into small pieces) and simmer for twenty minutes.

Snip the elderflowers from their stalks and add 2/3rds of them after 15 minutes.

Chop the plantain leaves finely and divide between the serving bowls. Pour on the soup, then scatter the remaining elderflowers on top to garnish. Miles Irving, forager.org.uk

Fire cider

Sprinkle this tonic on chips, use in salad dressing or take a teaspoon on its own or in water to help you through each cold and flu season.

Fire cider is said to be an immuneboosting tonic.

Clean, sterilised jar Wild ingredients: plantain and yarrow leaves, elderflower, or horseradish.

Cider vinegar Herbs and spices: garlic, ginger, chilli, onion, turmeric, black pepper, cardamom or cloves Honey or other natural sweetner

Wild greens

Easy ways to get tasty, nutritious wild plants onto the dinner table and into your diet.

Some of these ideas came about as ways to get less well-known wild plants into the kids by hiding them in their favourite dishes. All of these approaches apply to all edible green leaves available in June. Try chickweed, mallow, dandelion, fat hen, linden, oxalis, ground elder, ribwort and greater plantain. (See p. 2-3 for details).

10 eat wild!

Use whatever ingredients you have in your kitchen, or choose your preferred flavours. Get creative - make your own bespoke vinegar for yourself and those around you. Wild ingredients you might like to incorporate include plantain for a hint of mushroom flavour, elderflower, which is said to be anti-viral and tastes amazing, yarrow, traditionally used to tone the circulation or bring out a fever, or horseradish.

Chop the ingredients into roughly 1cm pieces to fill your jar about half way. Add the cider vinegar. You may like to add something to sweeten it. Add some greaseproof paper before closing the jar as the vinegar can damage plastic seals. It takes roughly 2 months for fire cider to be ready but you can start taking it sooner.

Shake the jar with the lid closed every day. Natasha Lloyd, gatheringnature.com

step one Wash and chop your leaves finely, by hand or in a food blender. step two Add to salad or pot noodle, beans (for beans on toast), cheese on toast, pizza (after stirring in a little oil), pasta sauce, tinned soups or mashed potatoes.

a word on bitterness

Some wild plants, such as dandelion, are quite bitter. But bitterness, like fibre, is probably something we don’t get enough of in our modern diets. Many bitter compounds are really beneficial.

RECIPES

Elderflower fritters

serves 4-6

These are quick and easy and can be savoury or sweet. Serve with either soy sauce or fresh strawberries and a dusting of icing sugar.

200ml ice cold water 1 large egg, beaten 100g sifted plain flour or buckwheat flour 2–3 ice cubes Sunflower oil, for frying 16 elderflower heads, stalks intact

Pour the ice cold water into a mixing bowl, mix in the egg, add the flour (try half flour and half corn flour for a lighter batter) and roughly fold it in with a fork. Do not beat it – the batter should be lumpy. Add the ice cubes.

Heat at least 2.5 cm oil in a frying pan. The oil is hot enough when a drop of batter bubbles and turns golden in 5 to 10 seconds. Hold a flower head by the stalk and wipe it through the batter to coat it, allowing excess batter to drip off. Keep hold of the stem while dropping the coated flower head into the oil. Using the stalk, turn it if necessary, cook until golden and crisp, then remove and place on the kitchen paper. Repeat with all the flower heads. To serve, either snip off the stems or eat the flower heads and discard the stems as you eat them. Rachel Lambert, wildwalks-southwest.co.uk

Simple wild salad

Most wild leaves are much more nutritious than cultivated ones, so this salad is actually a health booster as well as being fun to gather and delicious

Ingredients for dressing

5 tbsp oil 2 tbsp vinegar 1 tsp mustard 1 tsp honey 1 tbsp soy sauce (or a good pinch of salt)

Chop up some wild leaves (any or all of the following: chickweed, mallow, dandelion, fat hen, linden, oxalis, ground elder, ribwort and greater plantain) and mix them in with grated carrot or beetroot plus a little bit of chopped onion or chives. You can add edible flowers if you like (try elderflower or daisies). For a dressing you can use salad cream, mayonnaise, any other shop bought dressing or make this one: Mix together the oil and vinegar. You can use olive, sunflower or veg oil and ideally balsamic, cider or white wine vinegar. Add the mustard, honey and soy sauce or salt.

Put it all in a jar with a lid, put the lid on and give it a good shake.

Drizzle over your salad and enjoy. Miles Irving, forager.org.uk

Preserving the wild Freezing

Elderflowers can be frozen if you don’t have time to process them right away.

Cordials

Try this Elderflower cordial from the Association of Forager's Sarah Watson: recipes.wildfeast.co.uk/ ElderflowerCordial.html Use it in place of lemon and sugar on a drizzle cake, to flavour sorbets, ice cream and custard.

Drying

Red clover flowers (for tea), Japanese rose petals (for flavouring sweets and desserts), elderflowers – once dried, separate the flowers from the stalks with a fork and use for herbal teas.

Fresh tea

Elderflowers and red clover can be used fresh to make a very simple tea. Place them in a pot or tea infuser and pour boiling water over them, then infuse for 5 minutes. Add a squeeze of lemon and a little honey if you like. eat wild! 11

WILD CHILD

At the moment, many of us are stuck at home - like plants we have to stay in one place. Plants do grow upwards in the summer though - their tall stems help the leaves catch more sunlight to turn into food for themselves, for us and for the busy, buzzy bees.

Maybe you can be like the bees and explore the wonderful wild world of plants and trees near your home. Lots of them can give us things we need – food and medicine – did you know that dandelion leaves are edible or that plantain leaves placed on cuts and stings is said to help heal them?

Can you challenge yourself to recognise five wild plants which grow near your home?

?

Why not make a ”foragers’ map” of your home and garden, mark the compass directions and note all the plants that grow there.

Lucy O’Hagan, wildawake.ie

Fun facts

µ Touch elder bark and notice how knobbly it feels. It’s almost like touching the skin of a witch, covered in warts. µ The leaves, which smell a bit stinky, are used as an insect repellant, rubbed onto the skin.

Crush some and see what they smell like. µ It is said that on Midsummer’s Day, if you fall asleep under an elder tree, you would see the fairy king riding past. Have you spotted an elder tree near your home? µ Elder blossoms, bursting out like fluffy white clouds, can be picked and turned into cordial, fritters and cakes. Their flowers light up the hedgerows like bright, full moons. µ This month the full moon, on June 5th, is known as the ‘Strawberry Moon’. North American tribes knew the June full moon as a sign to gather wild strawberries.

June is the perfect time to harvest the delicious red berries of wild strawberry.

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K B C L E R R O S T M K Y D P F O K L A Y H P O N K G B J L N I T Z E Y P Y W I I P M D A T M Y F K A F Z S M L K E T N T F K J R M V W K I A E W A T L R X D E M L E N Y W R P I A E F G V W M Z D R K S A G Y I P O X L O W E E C S O I S B N F F A O L N S I W Z R D A W G K K S S F O H I W T O X C D R H T U Z R C K I P G T E O B U B K P G E R N H C K W X N O G N N H X D D A N D E L I O N D K W C I L R Q I H G Y M V V T K A O X E P X T E J F I C W W CHICKWEED CLEAVERS DAISY DANDELION

LINDEN MINT PLANTAIN ELDERFLOWER

FORAGE SAFELY

Golden guidelines for foragers, no matter what age!

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Make sure you are 100% sure of the identity of a plant before eating it.

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Make sure to wash any plant before you use it for food or medicine.

ROSE SORREL

Ask an adult for help to identify a plant.

Bring a field guide with you and work together to meet a new plant.

Game time

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CHOOSE WHO'S 'IT' Start with the youngest player. Teach them how to identify a few plants before playing.

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IF YOU'RE 'IT', SHOUT "You're only safe if you're touching a daisy." Try to hit players with a soft ball before they are ‘safe’.

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EVERYONE ELSE Run and try to touch a daisy. When you touch one you are 'safe'.

IF THE BALL HITS YOU before you touch a daisy, you are ‘it’. Now it’s your turn to come up with a task. try You’re only safe if... you’re touching plantain... you eat a dandelion flower. Play this inside with pictures of plants instead.

Remember all the other beings that depend on this plant and the wider ecosystem that this plant belongs to.

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Never take the first, never take the last. Take only what you need.

Use your harvest respectfully.

Rose Family: Roseaceae (ROSE-A-SEE-A)

meet the family

Rose family wild plants make lots of fruit such as rosehips, hawthorn berries, sloes, rowan berries and wild varieties of strawberries, apples, cherries and plums. There are more than 2,500 species within the family: Imagine the family reunion!

PHOTO: SIMON RIGBY