Yes, you can eat your Christmas tree! Or someone else’s! Or one you found in a forest!! You get the idea – and are fed up of exclamation marks by now.

Now is the time (late Spring) to harvest Spruce and Fir tips, the zingy green new growth at the tips of branches. These are brim-ful of Vitamin C, with a taste and smell of breezy lemon.

At this stage they’re soft and chewable. Later on in the season you can ony really brew them as tea as they are so tough.

Look closely and you’ll see the Fir I’m holding has needles that are rounded at the end, not pointed. It smells of lemon.These observations may save your life, so please read the botanical I.D. blurb after this!

Nutrition in Spruce, Pine and Fir Needles

Spruce needles, as well as pine and fir needles, contain a large amount of Vitamin C. Native peoples in America, Canada, Europe and Scandinavia have used edible evergreen tree needles as an essential vitamin top-up for thousands of years, especially in winter when other sources froze.

Spruce needles also contain:

• Beta-carotene (more in young leaves)
• B-vitamin precursors
• Sugars
• Carbohydrates (more in older leaves)
• Vitamin A
• Potassium
• Calcium, Magnesium
• Protein
• Antioxidants, chlorophyll

Identifying Edible Evergreens

If you’ve got this far, you want to do this! So, how do you identify edible evergreen trees?

There’s (give or take) 10-12 species of Spruce commonly found in the UK, growing wild, in plantation woods, or in parks and gardens. They are all in the genus Picea, family Pinaceae. Below are some of the most common Spruces in the UK.

You’re most likely to see Norway Spruce and Colorado Spruce. These are widely planted in Britain in shelter belts and as ‘feral’ Christmas trees!

NORWAY SPRUCE (Picea abies)

Shape: Conical, unbranching trunk

Height: To 44m

Leaves: Deep Green, needles 4-angled (NOT flat), on short papery pegs

Bark: Brown, scaly, with resinous patches when old

Cones: Male small and yellowish, female 18cm long and brown.

Scent: ‘Xmas smell’, piney, sweet, woody, slightly citrusy

BLUE COLORADO SPRUCE (Picea pungens)

Shape: Conical, slender

Height: To 30m

Leaves: Either dark green, or popular cultivar with turquoise needles. More needles on upper surface of shoot, Rounded, NOT flat.

Bark: Purplish, ridged, darker than Norway Spruce

Cones: Males red-tinged, female cones greener. On same tree. Female cones to 12cm, slightly curved.

Scent: lemony, powerful, camphor-like

Notice that Colorado Spruce colour can vary, so use other ID features and scent to identify it as a Spruce. There’s lots of Colorado Spruce cultivars as well. I tend to use my nose more than anything else! Never underestimate the role of scent in keeping you alive.

There’s also Brewer’s Spruce (Picea engelmannii), with pendulous needles hanging down (They should call it ‘Brewers Droop’!). There’s White Spruce and Black Spruce (Picea glauca/mariana respectively)

Fir

Fir trees have flattened needles, conical growth patterns and a strong citrusy scent. Douglas Fir can be used too, even though it isn’t a ‘true fir’ like Abies species.

The main way to tell these apart from Yew is the lemony scent and the Fir cones, which are large and upright pointing (except for Douglas Fir) and nothing like a Yew aril.

Below is a European Silver Fir (Abies alba). Other common species include the Noble Fir (Abies procera), which is usually silver-grey or purplish, and the Caucasian Fir (Abies nordmanniana). All have edible needles.

Poisonous lookalike -YEW

However, the main issue for foragers is NOT to confuse Spruce or Fir with Yew trees (Taxus sps), which are deadly poisonous!!! Hence the botanical blethering.

The COMMON YEW (Taxus baccata) – is DEADLY POISONOUS.

Yew also has short evergreen needles. It’s often found in churchyards and tends to be more spreading in form (unless trimmed into a cone or a hedge) and it doesn’t smell of pine, Christmas, or lemon. It doesn’t really have much of a smell at all. All parts of Yew except for the red aril around the seed contain taxin, a deadly heart poison.

(For more on eating Yew arils, see my previous post here. NEVER eat any other part of the plant, and remove the seed from the arils!)

Shape: spreading, squat, sometimes formed into cones. Long and twisting trunk.

Height: 25m

Leaves: Flattened needles with pale undersides. Up to 4cm long (can be shorter) and 3mm wide, narrowing to a point.

Bark: Reddish, peeling away in patches.

Cones: Male flowers yellowish, female flowers hard and green, both solitary. Female forms into bright crimson fruit (the aril) with a black seed in it.

Scent: None

If you happen to eat some Yew, haste thee to the hospital on a blaring, sirenned chariot.

Ok, now the terrifying warning part is done. Let’s look at some Spruce recipes.

Fir & Spruce Recipes

Here’s some I have tried. There’s plenty more, so I’m giving you the links to Forager:Chef, another site with great recipes.

Spruce/Fir Tea

Easy-peasy, lemon-scented squeezy. Stick a handful of young tips in a pan, boil then simmer for 5 minutes til the water changes colour and smells of lemon. Bung in some sugar or honey. Done.

Sea Bass with Lemon Fir Butter

You will need:

1 cup butter, cubed

1.5 cups Spruce/Fir tips

1 tsp rock or sea salt

1 tsp dried lovage/parsley

1 clove raw garlic, pounded

Zest of half a lemon

1 medium sized raw sea bass, filleted

1. Cube the butter and rub in the salt.
2. Mince up the spruce tips with a knife, but not so fine they will fall through a sieve!
3. I melted the butter then added the spruce tips, simmering for 10 mins. Some recipes mix the spruce into the butter without heating.
4. Add minced herbs and lemon zest.
5. Allow to cool.
6. Pan fry the sea bass in the Spruce and herb butter.
7. Serve with boiled potatoes (boil in Spruce-infused water for extra Spruce taste!) and runner beans or wild green sea veg.

Yes, I know, it doesn’t look like one of those fancy top-end Chef’s table dishes. Someone needs to pay me a lot more for that! I have to admit, I couldn’t taste much Spruce, so I added some more raw on top for more flavour. My son will not eat fish, so my metaphorical pearls are wasted before metaphorical swine…

Fir/Spruce Sun Syrup

This is a lovely hippy name for ‘cold-infused syrup’. It takes a while, but renders down slowly into a zesty syrup that keeps for ages. Spruce and fir syrup can be used in cocktails, mocktails, cordials, as a glaze on meats, in creamy desserts and over pancakes. Yum.

You will need:

250g soft brown sugar

1.5 cups Spruce/Fir tips

Large 500ml (or more) clean glass jar with lid

1. Pack thin layers of fir tips with equal parts of brown sugar in the jar.
2. Cover top with a thin layer of sugar to prevent air and rot getting to the spruce tips.
3. Put on lid and leave in a warm place.
4. You will see the moisture (and nutrients) changing the colour of the sugar around them. It’s fun to watch it change over days and weeks!
5. Eventually it will shrink down into a brown gooey syrup with a strong scent of spruce. At this point you can add some water and cook it, but admittedly I havent got to this part yet. Here is a link to the excellent Forager:Chef Spruce syrup recipe.

Okay, I hope that’s inspired you to go out and try some Fir and Spruce tips. Get up on your tippy toes these sunny days and get harvesting!

On a sustainability note, take only enough for a meal, and never more than 10-20% of the tips on one tree.

Hedgewitch Adventures Courses

My weekend courses you can view below on Eventbrite – the next half day course is:

Spring Foraging with Wild Tapas

Sun 31st May 2-5pm

Ouzel Valley Water Meadows & The Globe Inn

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/hedgewitch-adventures-36975508353

Autumn Seeds, Fruits, Nuts, Roots & Spices Webinar Classes

I’m developing some webinar-based courses with fieldwork assignments starting this Autumn. Yes, you get to do homework, just like school ;). These will run over at least 4 weeks, giving you lots of feedback, Q&A sessions and chats with other participants.

If you are interested in this, do let me know as I’d like an idea of numbers. I will be running one free webinar class beforehand so you can get an idea of whether you’d like the course.

If you don’t think it will work, tell me why in the comments and I’ll be eternally grateful! Maybe I’ll go get a job in Tesco instead. Or go back to the school where the children beat me up. 🙂

See you in the wilderness…

xx Hedgewitch Kat xx