DORSET FORAGER See details and availability of Carl’s local foraging courses on his website Self Sufficient Hub here
by Carl Mintern Traditionally, gorse was important to the rural economy throughout the British Isles, and used as winterfodder for livestock. Commonly called fuzz moots, gorse roots were dried and burned as fuel - touted to be better than coal, hotter and cleaner. Well into the nineteenth century, they were used to fuel brick bread ovens, which were often called furze ovens.
It’s ‘officially’ maincrop season You’re wrong if you think a forager’s prime time starts in August. You can reap the bounty of a wild harvest right now, says expert forager Carl Mintern, who picks out three favourites for early spring As we rise out of a very mild winter this year, we see the young buds of spring appearing earlier and in more abundance than usual.
For me this is an opportunity for action – the wild food harvest starting gun has officially gone off and we are into a forager’s equivalent of what a gardener
Wild garlic was so highly valued in Ireland that, according to the Old Irish Brehon laws, there was a fine for stealing it from private land – the poacher would forfeit “two and a half milch cows”. One wonders how the penalty of two and a half cows was paid.
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may consider their maincrop season. People who are unaccustomed to foraging may consider the foraging season as beginning in August and ending around October, with most of the fruit and fungi that can be found across the UK at that time of year. If you are someone who thinks this way then, well, that’s what I am here for! And you have been missing out on some of the best foraging of the year. The British countryside offers wild edible food in every one of the twelve months, but from early March things really start to get exciting, and this year it’s all happening even earlier than usual. Let’s have a look at three of the plants that will make their way into my kitchen regularly this March...