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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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).
Name: Wild Garlic
Location: Mostly found on Riverbanks
Months: March, April
Edible Parts: Leaves and Bulbs
Non-Edible Parts: Flowers
When young the leaves are mild and great additions to salads. If you go for the bulb it can be used just like a shop garlic clove. As the plant matures the leaves become extremely strong flavoured and you will want to use them more sparingly. Once it flowers it’s time to leave it be as with most plants.
