Foraging opportunity

[jillybean]

Do you know your wild foods? these folk want help foraging certain bits, I noticed Sitka spruce shoots. http:www.forager.org.uk It would be nice for someone to earn something from this. Good luck!

[RichardKing]

I have grown Corn Salad & Good King Henry on the vegetable plot in my garden, its very easy.

I simply cant see the benefit or point in taking them from the wild, let alone decimating the wild population.

As for Sweet Flag, are they suggesting that we dig up the tubers of these wild flowers ?

This would be an offence under the Wildlife & Countryside act

[greyman]

Once again we seem to have someone encouraging people on courses to plunder the countryside and woodlands. What with the 'golden nut' hunt and various other bushcrafties out there now there's a good chance we'll be fighting to actually get access to our woods... ;~)

[RichardKing]

Jillybean, do you know these people, or have any knowledge of them ?

.

Of course it could all be a scam to get people to pay & sign up for their courses.

Make your fortune flogging them a few wild leaves ?

I dont think so.

.

My built-in, shock-proof twentyfour carat crap detector (credit Henry Miller) Just went off scale, again.

[tracy]

I wonder if it is a lot less harmful to nature to eat a few wild leaves instead of buying food grown in bulk, full of chemicals and pesticides?

Jilly is not advocating trespass or damage, or decimation, she simply commented that these foraging courses look interesting. I would like to eat more of a variety of wild foods - and some courses can help us with id and perhaps to know what we should and shouldn't be digging up.

Dandelion leaves are good in salad, must admit, far too scared to try wild mushrooms!

[jillybean]

Richard, I was given a book for Christmas , "the Foragers Handbook" and looked at the Website. The Author, Miles Irving, delves into the History of wild foraging, and comments on how wild seeds have been spread by foragers for millennia. He also insists people get permission from Landowners and show respect for all wild plants and wildlife. Im Getting a little sick of your constant negativity. Is there anything you approve of?

[Darren]

Cooked a leg of lamb in the woods over the new year and went down to the stream and got some wild garlic roots. Cut slits in the leg and put the roots in, it tasted better knowing some of the ingredients where local.

[John H]

The only thing I forage is an odd mushroom and it has to look and smell like one that would be found in Tescos. It would be interesting to know more but I don't think I will fork out to go on a course.

Darren, how did you cook you lamb? on a spit or did you build some kind of oven?

Any pics?

[Darren]

We used a Dutch oven on a tripod. I have made a oven which is built into a bank. It's a metal food drum with a shelf and paving brick underneath. Just light a fire under the shelf for a few hour to heat it up. I use a series of baked bean tins as a chimney. We cooked 2 whole chicken and roast potatoes in the oven.

[Exeldama]

Simple to me... i dont have a prob with some common sense foraging..isnt that what wildlife does..?

Just dont take too much and help keep things turning by planting back a few seeds or whatever is appropriate.....

tracy is right enough in that a visit to the supermarket prob has more of an impact all be it indirectly than we care to admit.

all through our history man has known to give a little back, thats how peoples close to nature have avoided decimatting their own larder, and but for a few famous instances it worked well enough, otherwise most things would have been eaten out long ago..its just that us modern people are monumentally thick and dont understand balance . Perhaps we need to encourage the sustainabilty that we talk of when it comes to trees as much towards wee plants and the like... which largely relies upon them having a Use to us. The old adage of a wood that pays stays applied to plants and deer and hell squirrels.