Nest Reminder Eggs for Chickens

A handy little trick I just picked up was to buy fake eggs for your chickens. We have just got two chickens in our yard and after a quick change of things we built a new nest box. The chickens were taking it in turns on just one nest so I wanted to encourage eggs in the new nest box too.

I picked up 9 of these plastic eggs from the supermarket for just 75p all in. It’s easter, so take advantage of this and get some fake eggs for your chickens just in case. You can also get proper chicken eggs that look much more realistic but I found it really doesn’t matter. Pop an egg into each nest and your chickens will get the idea. It also prevents them laying outside of nest boxes with a gentle reminder of where to go.

As you can see compared to the real deal these eggs are much smaller and definitely not chicken like but my chickens are quite happy with their egg reminders and now laying in both nest areas.

Chives or Crow Garlic

Name: Chives, Crow Garlic

Location: Rocky areas or roadsides

Months: March, April, May, June, July

Edible Parts: Young Leaves (softer brighter green ones)

Non-Edible Parts: Flowers

It’s amazing what you find out and about on a pathway or woodland path. In this instance I found Chives or Crow Garlic. They are essentially the same thing, long thin tubular leaves that smell and taste of onion/garlic. You can use them fresh as they are or dry them out to use as a herb later.

Nettles

It’s not just goosegrass that’s popping up this spring nice and early. Nettles are growing new shoots in abundance and these new baby leaves are perfect for a variety of household kitchen uses.

The newest youngest nettle leaves can be picked for a variety of meals and treats including nettle tea and nettle pesto. Why pay an obscene amount for a small jar of pesto or a few bags of tea that you can basically get for free from your garden?

Name: Nettles

Location: Anywhere.

Months: March, April

Edible Parts: Young Leaves (softer brighter green ones)

Non-Edible Parts: Tough older leaves (just not very tasty)

Caution: Wear gloves when picking and wilt before eating!

Make sure before you eat any nettles that you properly wilt them first. To do so, place the nettles in boiling hot water and push under the surface then take them out and put them into cold water right away to stop them cooking. This removes the sting and makes them edible.

Wild Garlic Paste

Now that the Wild Garlic is springing up again this season take advantage of it and try to store as much of it as possible to last you until your next garlic harvest.

A simple and easy way to store wild garlic is to create a garlic paste. All you need is some high quality oil such as Olive Oil and a bunch of wild garlic leaves/bulbs. SO long as the wild garlic isn’t flowering, you can use the whole thing for this paste.

Step One: Add a touch of lemon juice, a dash of salt and pour a tablespoon of olive oil to your Wild Garlic. Then, blend them together, a handheld blender works best.

Step Two: Add more love oil if necessary to make a strong garlic paste to the thickness you desire and mix well.

Step Three: Pour into a jar and top with a layer of oil to seal it in and stop air exposure.

You can keep this paste in the pantry or in the fridge, so long as the oil layer is maintained it shouldn’t go bad. You may find in the fridge the oil layer becomes hard, that’s normal! Just scoop underneath it and reseal after use. You should only need a teaspoon per meal to replace your usual garlic cloves as it’s reasonably strong flavoured.

Goose Grass Tea

If you have picked up some goosegrass this spring for eating, save a little to one side for some goosegrass tea.

DIABETICS SHOULD AVOID THIS RECIPE.

Making the tea is very simple! Just dry out the goosegrass at around 50 degrees in your oven or dehydrator. Then collect in an air tight dry and sterile pot.

To brew the tea, simply add a little to your strainer or pot and allow to steep for ten minutes.

This tea makes a great herbal remedy for constipation as it’s a mild laxative.

Goosegrass

It’s spring! and One of the first things to come up this spring that you may not be aware of as being edible is – Goosegrass! You may know it by many names including sticky weed, it’s distinctive due to it’s sticky nature and most people know it from their childhood days of sticking it onto the backs of unknowing parents and siblings.

It’s been a while since our last post, and we haven’t been idle but winter is a hard season. Next year we will be able to tell you more about the various wine, cider and food stuffs we have been collecting in more detail.

Name: Goose Grass, Sticky Weed.

Location: Anywhere, usually poorly drained and compacted soil.

Months: March, April

Edible Parts: Leaves, Seeds

Non-Edible Parts: Burrs

Caution: Diabetics should avoid Goose Grass Teas.

As one of the first edible plants to pop up at the start of the spring season, Goosegrass is a handy herb to know how to use as a part of your diet. Best picked in March in full sunshine, you can take advantage of the young fresh leaves. The leaves can be used like a salad leaf or replacing basil in a pesto. If you use the leaves to make a tisane (Tea) it becomes a powerful diuretic and a mild laxative. The seeds can be used as a coffee substitute although in our humble opinion Dandelion roots make a much more substantial and tasty coffee flavour.
Even the root of this plant is useful as a red dye agent.

Sweet Red Apples

Name: Apples

Location: Apple Trees!

Months: October, November

Edible Parts: All except maybe the stalk

Non-Edible Parts: Stalk? The Tree?

While cycling through one of the many scenic cycle routes in Birmingham I came across a wonderful array of sweet red apple trees. I almost passed it by completely in my speed but the rate they were dropping had quickly created a red blanket in the corner and more were dropping as I looked. After a quick taste test I found these were not the lesser valued crab apples but sweet dessert apples of a most gloriously syrup like nature. I have never tasted a sweeter, crunchier apple in my life. Not a single ounce of powdery taste or bitterness.

There are so many apples there I could not fit them all into my backpack, so return journey’s are on the cards! I always find it truly amazing how many people just walk past these little golden finds and surely a red apple is as obvious a food source as it gets?

Oh well more for us! After picking up as many as I could possibly hold before the last of the daylight condemned me to utter darkness, I took them home and began the therapeutic task of washing and scrubbing the apples clean and sorting them into piles of bruised and undamaged. The undamaged ones are going to be used for eating and the bruised ones will be for cider with any luck.

Puff Ball Mushrooms

Name: Puff Balls

Location: Dead wood

Months: Usually August and September (**Note I found some fresh new ones as late as November this year due to the mild weather!”

Edible Parts: The spongy middle if pure white (Remove skin and do not eat if it is turning yellow or green inside).

Non-Edible Parts: Skin (yucky)

Here’s what these puff balls look like when skinned.l They are spongy, pure white and have a bit of air in them so you can hear it escaping sometimes when you squeeze them.

Some puff balls have spiked skin and some are less wrinkly. All puff balls are edible.

They can be dried for storage just like any other mushroom but go great fried and added to burgers (especially giant puff balls which can make up a steak sized portion in your burger!).

Storing Jelly Ears

Preserving and Storage

Set your oven on 50-70 degrees (or the lowest possible setting). Lay out the jelly ears evenly, preferably on some kind of rack or grill to allow air flow beneath them. Leave them in the oven until completely dried. When almost done you may turn off the oven to allow the remaining heat to finish them off.

Store in GLASS, do not use plastic containers and ensure they are dry and no longer sweat. They will keep until you wish to hydrate them again. Personally, I keep a jar on my kitchen shelf and label them by mushroom type, location found and date.

Jelly Ears

Name: Jelly Ears, Jews Ears and more.

Location: On Dead Trees particularly Elder

Months: All Year Round

Edible Parts: All of the Mushroom

Non-Edible Parts: None

As you can see on this particular foraging trip we also found a variety of other goodies (a big field mushroom and around 2kg of sweet chestnuts). However, I’ll discuss those treats separately, for now I chose this picture but it shows very clearly what jelly ears can look like when very big! However, they look quite different when young:

Identification

Cup shaped when young resembling an ear
Rubbery/gelatinous texture
red brown colouring
Inner surface smooth and shiny, scurfy outer surface matte

Beware Of

Some of the cup fungi are inedible, distinguished by their brittle flesh (as opposed to gelatinous) and they grow on soil. If it’s not a tree, leave it be! (Please DO NOT apply this rhyme to all mushrooms… just the jelly ears).