clifton walking group

Please contact for info: Suzanne I’ons -07933709006 ionssuzanne@gmail.com

With Summer well underway and the group walking local footpaths, there are so many options for eagle-eyed foragers. The first of the blackberries are glistening like jewels in the hedgerows; blackberry picking has always been a popular pastime, but did you know that blackberry syrup makes a fab mixer for a pink gin? Or use them to flavour vinegar for a salad dressing! Down by the Ivel, Himalayan Balsam, long considered invasive, is in full flower. Feel free to collect flowers or seeds, which taste like walnuts and can be eaten raw. They cook up to make a great dahl or can be used toasted in cookies; I shall be trying both recipes very soon.

Hazel trees are laden with a good crop of nuts this year, they are ripening nicely but beware squirrels beating you to the harvest.

The hawthorn berries for jelly will be ready soon, as will sloes for gin making, but further on the Rowan tree is dripping with orange red fruits that make a good jelly to serve with lamb.

On the ground there is plenty of red clover. As kids we ate butter, sugar and clover flower sandwiches why not try it? Tansy is growing bright yellow along the edge of the cornfield, you need only a couple of leaves to flavour an omelette. There is wild fennel and wild marjoram on the field edge too. Who needs a herb garden when the countryside offers of much? I love walking in the late summer with so much wild food growing along the way and the promise of more to come later in the year.

Happy hunting!