The Forager's Calendar: A Seasonal Guide to Nature’s Wild Harvests

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In this post you can find a link to a simple uk foraging calendar that gives typical dates that wild foods can be foraged for you to use in home cooking and brewing. Summer is now in full swing, and the countryside is brimming with edible plants. It’s now you can find an array of wild fruit, including cherries, raspberries and damsons. Cepsare highly prized in the culinary world and can be found growing in forests from late summer. Tart crab apples begin to ripen, and their high pectin content makes them ideal for preserves. The similarly bitter rowan berries are also brilliant for jellies and liqueurs; they grow in bright red clumps in their namesake tree. September With the brown, feathery appearance of its scaly cap, it’s a polypore, meaning that its underside is covered in pores rather than gills. There is a wide variety of food you can forage for in Britain, including nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables and more. Foraging is a great way to appreciate seasonal change, connect with nature and find wild local ingredients to use in delicious home cooking recipes. Wild ramps boast a variety of nutrients and beneficial compounds that may improve your digestion, promote weight loss, reduce inflammation, and fight heart disease.

I have colour coded the months as a reminder of the seasons, although they should only be taken as a heads up because global warming does mess with seasonality. Also, when plants grow is hugely influenced by the location so there will be differences all over the UK. I’ve added a note at the top of the calendar as a reminder to buy your yearly yeast and other items if you are home brewing. Brewing using foraged food is extremely low cost if you use up old wine bottles so it’s at the heart of being self sufficient. It’s also incredibly fun but you do have to wait a year for your home brewed wine to mature so it’s worth starting as soon as you can to get the experience and start storing batches so you have them in future years. Found the calendar helpful? I created this UK foraging calendar (access here) on Google Sheets that is free for all to copy, use, and improve. UK Foraging Calendar Explaining the calendar For many people, fragrant elderflowers are synonymous with summer and they’re at their best from late May to June depending on where you live. The flowers and berries are the only edible part of the elder tree and require cooking to remove the small amounts of toxic chemicals.

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The Cornish make a delicious cheese using them, the Nepalese make curries and some people even use them for clothing. Nettle soup/Credit: Getty Images

Leave enough for wildlife and avoid damaging habitats.Many animals rely on plants for survival, so never take more than you plan to eat as this could also deny wildlife from a valuable food source. Be mindful about wildlife habitats and avoid disturbing or damaging. Our expert monthly foraging guide explains how to forage safely, the law and what's in season each month. What is foraging?USDA bulletin #8: dandelion greens rank among the top 4 green vegetables in nutrition. beta-carotene, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A, B, micronutrients. The Cornish make a delicious cheese using them, the Nepalese make curries and some people even use them for clothing. Bilberry and Almond Streusel Cake Over the last five years, Scottish gin has grown in both profile and popularity. Indeed over 70% of the UK’s gin is produced here. Many producers use locally foraged botanicals to make their spirit stand out from others. One of the most unusual we’ve discovered is sugar kelp, which is used, along with other botanicals, to flavour Harris Gin . This hand-dived seaweed, gives the spirit a distinct and delicious taste that’s the very essence of the island it comes from. Williams' Bros. Brewing Co

Remember to wear protective clothes since these bushes have many thorns to keep berry hunters away from their treasure troves. If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:

Monthly foraging calendar

It can be cooked and served like spinach. They are nice and tender earlier in the season when they’re young. Before going foraging I recommend you thoroughly read the River Cottage Handbook No.7, Hedgerow by John Wright. That book comes with the most popular wild food including pictures. Once you’ve read that book, take it out with you when you go foraging and use the details and pictures to help you become familiar with edible wild foods. Foraging is a great hobby and life skill that anyone can learn. It can be done with family, friends, or by yourself. Foraging is one of the best ways to reconnect with nature. While foraging is easy to learn it can be hard to master. Here’s a little cheat sheet for those just starting or those who just want to add to their list of what to keep an eye out for while adventuring. Ramps (Allium tricoccum)

How to use it: very versatile with a similar flavour to parsley that goes well with fish. Eat the young leaves and shoots raw or add to salads and sandwiches. You can cook the leaves in a similar way to spinach by steaming or softening in butter. Or add them to anything you're making like soups, stews, bubble and squeak and pasta dishes. Woodlands, forests and the countryside are a good place to start your foray into foraging, but you may also find wild foods in surprisingly urban places too, such as a local park or even your garden. As a next step you could progress to Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants of Britain and Ireland by Robin Harford. This book gives further detail of edible wild food and comes with a free online photo identification guide. They’ve given us some of the most agonising experiences of our young lives as nippers and they continue to upset our own children and grandchildren, but nettles are more than just needled irritants.This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably. There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can: Vitamins A, D, B complex, C, iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, sodium, copper, silica Bilberries look like small blueberries, and they are closely related, but their taste is much more intense and sharp. You will need to work hard to find them. Extremely difficult to grow and therefore rarely cultivated, bilberries are a real treat for a forager.