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My Hedgewitch Journal: Seedy September 2025
September is the golden, freckled season of seeds. There’s lots to forage now and much to store for winter. So here are 5 the seeds the boy and I been harvesting. Well, ok, seeds I have been harvesting whilst my son moans about it and slumps in the footway. PLANTAIN SEEDS I’ve been shucking the…
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Cooking A Continental Find: ‘Pioppino’, The Poplar Field Mushroom
A week or so after the first rains, I leapt aboard my trusty steed and cycled down to one of my favourite foraging haunts, Tiddenfoot Lake. Here I was blessed enough to find two black poplar tree stumps with fruiting Poplar Field Mushrooms. This mushroom, Cyclocybe aegerita/cylindracea, has been foraged, grown and cooked since Greek…
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SUMMER SPICED FRUITS:H.A. Foraging Journal July pt 2
Fruits are hanging ready all about me, urged on by the earlier, hotter than normal weather. Being aware of climate change and making whatever steps we can to lower our carbon footprint is one thing to do. Try to walk on local journeys whenever possible…not only are you saving carbon and getting fitter, you’ll spot…
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FLOWER POWER :H.A.Foraging Journal July Pt 1
June and July are such busy months for the forager! Below are some things you might like to try that I’ve been doing. 1.Fortify yourself with St John’s Wort! I infused some St John’s Wort, the Midsummer Flower according to Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’. I infused it in lemon gin. I actually don’t like gin,…
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Nettle Seed Potato Bites, Wild Spicy Kimchi Egg Sticks, Elderflower Jelly
Last Sun 15th June forage was a quiet but fun one, showing off June’s full glory. We wandered through sunny vistas of fragrant water meadow, cool beech and chestnut woods, and balmy towpath. (The child is not dead, by the way, or even unconscious!) We sampled a new recipe for Nettle seed. I’ve been using…
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Mayan & Aztec Xocolatl
Though not strictly foraged, I need to share with you the joy of making our own hot chocolate (chocolatl) the way the Olmecs, Mayans and Aztecs prepared it for thousands of years. We got these cacao beans from a plantation in Madagascar last summer. The Aztecs regarded chocolatl as a sacred drink, fit only for…
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StrANge fRuiT(ing bodies): Fungi-like Horsetails
This week in April, myself and the child collected tender fertile stems of Common/Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense). These are part of the diet in Japan, Korea and China. They are SO WEIRD…like ALIEN THINGS. They’re a fairly common invasive species in the UK, too, grabbing a chokehold on the damp banks of watercourses. Weird fact:…
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A Gift Of Zander
Today when i came out of Tesco, I saw the strangest craft on the canal. It was a small GRP skiff with what looked like a giant mouth brace on it, with tubes of different colours going into the water. The three men on it were working for CART, getting rid of invasive fish. They…
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Summer Foraging & Kimchi pics June
Taught some lovely people this weekend, including a paramedic, a biochemist, someone who works in international theatre and people that work with PRU units to make work opportunities for teenagers. I changed the tapas menu for Sat : this June we sampled Steamed Hogweed Flower Beetroot Club Sticks, Estonian Potato Nettle Cakes and Elderflower Jelly…
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Lemon ‘Mallow Melokhia Magic’..MMM.
Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris) is everywhere on disturbed soil and path edges. The leaves are wide and hand-like – if your hand was that of an Martian tiger! They have a deep red dot in the centre. The flowers are blowsy light pink with triangular petals. The triangle theme carries on in the brown, wheel…
