HEDGEWITCH ADVENTURES

It’s May. They’re out, now. Go into the pine, oak and birch acid woodlands and scout about on the ground for those swan-necked shoots of Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinium). They are graceful things, and when cut from their juicy base they smell of almond cream. Almonds, you say? Doesn’t that mean cyanide? Well not exactly.…

There’s a knack to picking gorse flowers. Gorse, or Ulex Europaeus, is spiny as all hell. The trick is to pluck the open flowers right at the end of the twigs – the open flowers have more of the scent that you want to impart flavours to your drinks (be they alcoholic or otherwise). Plus,…

Here’s what’s on at Easter (when my Mum has my hyperactive 7 year old…) Sat 9th April : Spring Forage and Pub Quiz : 2 hours of foraging tuition in the lovely Ouzel River Meadows, then back to the pub for a fun quiz! The Globe Inn, Linslade, 10am-1pm, max 15 spaces £15 adult/£7.50 child…

Cow parsley, or Anthriscus sylvestris, is so entrenched at the sides of our ditches, waysides and collective consciousness that we are almost blind to its creamy flurry of umbrellalike blossoms, its ferny carrot top fronds of vibrant green. it is often one of the first plants to show its head come Spring. As you may…

Myself and the lad are fresh back from the deep woods of Cranham Scout campsite in Gloucester. Here we camped in about a foot of thick, curd-like February mud and learned of the further arts of camp fire cookery from Wayne and Beth (and other Chefs!) of Forest Knights Bushcraft School. Whilst my son threw…

We can all feel the quickening, so now’s the time to talk about Birch, that fast growing speeding deciduous, first into the fray in the epic poem ‘Battle of the Trees’ from the Celtic ‘Book of Taliesin’. Birch is a useful tree in many ways. It really is first to colonise new spaces, being a…

I go for a walk with my son in the clear cold air. Rushmere Country Park is evergreen Plantation at one end, but at the Stockgrove end is mostly much older Broadleaf woodland. It’s all beautiful no matter which end… Now is the time to have fun learning to tell which evergreen tree is which.…

January, traditionally known as the ‘hungry gap’, where the feast of Christmas was over and all that was left was dried broad beans, pickled veg and whatever porridge oats the rats hadn’t got at. It’s not quite the same today, with food flown in from the tropics and out of us with fridge freezers powered…